


Morning Glory

by Mithen



Series: Gardens of Wayne Manor [5]
Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-13
Updated: 2011-06-10
Packaged: 2017-11-17 03:49:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two cities, two heroes, one beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Postcards

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [晨辉](https://archiveofourown.org/works/628997) by [Lynx219](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynx219/pseuds/Lynx219)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce meditates in Nanda Parbat while Clark settles in at the Daily Planet, but their thoughts are not so dissimilar.

_Bruce:_

_I hope this reaches you eventually. I used your Japan address, but I know you'll be on the road a lot. Settling into college life. My roommate--if you can believe this--is some kind of football star. He calls me "Clarkie." At least he isn't here much so I can get some studying done._

_This postcard should probably be the Metropolis skyline, I guess, but it isn't. I miss reading in the gazebo with you. I hope this letter finds you well._

_Yours, Clark_

The postcard was dated four years ago, and was creased and worn around the edges. Bruce picked it up and read it again, just as if he didn't know the words by heart, noting once more with a smile the stilted formality at the end. He turned it over to look at the skyline of Gotham, the lights reflected in the waters of the bay.

Bruce hadn't seen electric lights in almost a year. Nanda Parbat was lit only by torchlight and an eerie flickering illumination that seemed sometimes to caress the air itself. Hidden deep in a cleft in the Himalayas, the monastery seemed untouched by time.

Years of traveling, of training, had brought Bruce here at last. Here to where he had learned to control his flesh and his will as one: to go without sleep, without food, without even air for longer than most humans. To make both body and mind as keen as a blade of vengeance.

He had sat on the doorstep of Nanda Parbat for a week, waiting, until the doors had been opened to him. Had swept the floors and boiled rice for a month in silence before the masters would consider training him. The day the Master came to him and told him they would teach him what they knew, Bruce asked, "How will I know when my training is complete?"

The Master had laughed--the odd, dry chuckle that Bruce would come to know well--and said, "I know your heart, boy. Your training will never be complete. But--" he had reached out and touched Bruce's chest with a wizened finger, "--You will know when you are ready."

Bruce held the postcard in his hand: on one side the lights of Gotham, on the other the marks of Clark Kent's touch. For a moment it felt like he held his own soul in his hands, both sides marked and claimed.

In that instant he knew at last that he was ready.

**: : :**

_Clark:_

_Nice mountain range, huh? That's where I'm headed. I doubt there'll be post offices there, so you might not hear from me for a while. I can't say much more about it, I'm sorry. I think of you often. Don't forget your old friend,_

_Bruce Wayne_

The desk was dauntingly bare and empty; Clark put the postcard showing a jagged knifes'-edge of mountains rearing into the sky onto its vast expanse. All around him the _Daily Planet_ bullpen chattered and swarmed with energy, and once again Clark found himself wondering what on Earth he was doing here, in Metropolis rather than his home. But Clark had been offered jobs in Los Angeles, Austin, and Metropolis. Not Gotham. So he had been forced to take the job nearest his home and assume that eventually fate would bring him to where he was destined to be.

The bright red and blue costume sat unused in a suitcase in his tiny apartment, waiting for the right moment. Saturn Girl had smiled and said he'd know when that was. He missed the Legion, the company of people who understood him.

He reached out and traced the mountains on the postcard as though tracing the curve of a longed-for mouth.

A door banged open. "Kent!" bellowed a voice from his memories. "Get in here!" Perry White beckoned him into his office.

Inside the office he found a woman in a smart tailored suit, maybe two or three years older than he was. He knew her, of course--who didn't know Lois Lane, the hotshot reporter who had single-handedly raised the _Planet_ all the way to the number-two newspaper in Metropolis? Her arms were crossed and she was glaring at Perry. "You've _got_ to be kidding me," she growled, her voice lower and huskier than most women's.

Perry pointed at Clark with his unlit cigar. "I tell you, the kid's got a good instinct for this," he said to her. "He worked for me once. Trust me." He leveled a glare at Clark, still standing stunned by the compliment. "You're on the Mannheim story with Lane," he said.

"The--the Mannheim story?" stammered Clark.

Lois Lane rolled her eyes to the ceiling as if asking for divine assistance. "Bruno Mannheim, up and coming 'respectable businessman' who's probably clandestinely assembling his own Syndicate," she rattled off in a bored tone. "The man I'm intending to expose to all of Metropolis as having his fingers in every foul-smelling pie in the city. Or I _was_ ," she said pointedly, tapping her toe, "Until I got saddled with some cub reporter by my oh-so-brilliant editor."

"You mean the Bruno Mannheim who just got out of prison for threatening a juror on the Cobblepot case four years ago?" Clark said meekly.

"Told you he had the instincts," Perry chuckled as Lane's eyebrows shot up and she yanked them back down into a frown. "You'll make a good team, Mad Dog," he said.

Lois cast him a withering glance. As she walked past Clark on the way to the bullpen, she flicked his ear with a thumb and index finger, hard.

"Ow," said Clark.

"Just wanted to check how wet you were behind them," she said, stalking out of the office.

Clark rubbed his ear as if it were smarting, gazing after Lois Lane, until he heard Perry White chuckling behind him.

"What the hell are you waiting for, Kent?" said Perry when he turned, the chuckle turning into a scowl. "You better go after her and prove me right, or I'll have your head, you hear me?"

Lois was standing by his desk when he caught up to her, drumming her fingers on its vast bare expanse. "Let's get this straight," she said, pointing a perfectly-manicured, pragmatically-short scarlet fingernail at him, "You do what I tell you to do and you keep your mouth shut unless you have something _very_ valuable to contribute. Get it?"

"Got it."

"Good." She went to her desk and picked up a pile of papers, dropping them on his desk with a _thump_. "Fill out my expense accounts. I'm going to make some calls."

Clark bit his lip and started filling out Lois's paperwork, listening to her wrangle people about interviews on the phone. A kid with a shock of carroty hair came by and tossed a newspaper onto her desk; Clark could see enough of the banner to confirm it was today's edition of the _Star_ , the biggest-selling newspaper in Metropolis. She opened it and riffled through the pages, then let out an annoyed snort. "Geez, they even scooped us in the stupid society pages," she muttered.

Clark went hastily back to the paperwork before she could catch him watching. "Gotham," she said. Then she repeated it, more loudly: "Hey, Gotham!"

Clark looked up to find her staring right at him. "Who, me?"

"That's where you're from, right?"

"Well, I went to college in Metropolis, and I lived in Kansas until I was eight--"

"--I didn't ask for your life story, I asked if you were from Gotham."

"More or less, yes."

"Then what do you think of this?" She tossed the newspaper over to him, folded open to the society pages.

The photograph leaped out at him before the headline: familiar ice-blue eyes over an unfamiliar smile, wide and easy and cheerful. His eyes lifted from the face to the words above it:

**Return of the Prodigal Son.**


	2. Postcards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark feels nostalgic while dumpster diving, and Bruce has a gift for Martha Kent.

_From: Bruce Wayne_  
To: Clark Kent  
Subject: So...

_...It seems I'm home? I'm still pretty jet-lagged, and was thus kind of surprised to find myself in my old bed back at the Manor. There were some bright lights at the airport, but I thought they were my imagination, not flash bulbs. I had no idea my return would make the news, and I'm sorry you found out about it that way. Things have been pretty crazy, and I didn't have Internet access until I got back in the States. I ended up going to some amazing places, and--well, let's just say I have a big project in mind. Extremely big. Cosmic big. The kind of big that sounds kind of crazy on paper. Or in email. And it's still very much in the planning stages. I know you're just getting started at your new job, but do you think you might have time to meet up with me soon? It's been too long._

"Good morning, Gotham!"

Clark closed the email window hurriedly as Lois Lane strode up to his desk, cup of coffee in hand.

"Morning, Ms Lane."

She eyed him narrowly. "Or should I call you Bristol? Since that's where you're _actually_ from."

Clark froze. "I'm sorry?"

Lois huffed an annoyed sigh. "I'm an investigative reporter, Kent. I wanted to find out more about the newbie I'd gotten saddled with. It didn't take a lot of digging to find out where you grew up." She perched on the corner of his desk, grinned smugly, and took a sip of coffee. "So. Stately Wayne Manor, huh?"

"Um..."

"If Perry were to find out, I bet he'd move you straight to the society pages and assign you to the Bruce Wayne beat."

Even though Perry surely already knew, Clark nearly broke out in a cold sweat at the idea of Lois getting him sent to follow Bruce around with the other _paparazzi_ , hounding him as he got out of limos...

Lois chortled at the look on his face. "Just thought I'd let you know," she said. "But if you don't get in the way _too_ much, maybe I won't tell him."

Clark watched her stroll back to her desk, humming under her breath, and felt his exasperation mingle with admiration. She was _good._

**: : :**

"Are you sure we should be here, Ms Lane?"

"Please don't waste my time with stupid questions, Kent." Lois opened the dumpster behind Mannheim's offices--a sleek, modern building that was a notable upgrade from the one he'd been in four years ago. "Sometimes people leave valuable information in the trash. We just need to dig in and see what we can find."

Clark eyed Lois's shining Jimmy Choo pumps. "We?"

She slapped him on the back. "Okay, I meant you. I'll keep a lookout."

Clark didn't bother to try and suppress his sigh as he clambered into the dumpster. As he rooted around, he contemplated the fact that once again he was knee-deep in trash because of Bruno Mannheim.

 _Deja vu_ indeed.

Most of the paper in the dumpster had been run through a shredder, but he spotted a scrap of paper covered with moldy coffee grounds and tea leaves and extracted it, grimacing. After squinting at it, he slipped it into a pocket. He could feel the silky texture of alien cloth under his clothes: he'd taken to wearing the costume under his work clothes, just in case.

"Clark?" Lois's voice was pitched ever so slightly too high. "Any luck?"

"Haven't found a thing, Ms Lane," he said, sticking his head back out of the dumpster. He wasn't the least surprised to find a very large man, his well-tailored suit contradicting his broken nose and cauliflower ears, standing behind her. Luckily it wasn't either of the men who'd chased him through the streets of Gotham years ago--but then, bodyguard to Bruno Mannheim was probably a job with a lot of turnover. "Oh dear," said Clark, looking at Lois's frightened face as he climbed out. "Are we in trouble?"

"You bet you are," said the thug. "Come with me."

Lois let out a breathy little shriek and clutched at Clark's arm. "Please don't hurt us!" she cried.

All in all, considering she had almost certainly set them up to be captured, Clark thought she was overplaying it just a bit.

"Just taking you to the boss so he can decide what to do with you," said the thug, and Lois's eyes gleamed triumph before going back to cowed.

Clark sighed. Another brilliant, fragile human too in love with justice for their own safety.

**: : :**

Bruno Mannheim was bigger than he had been four years ago, both figuratively and literally. He loomed over Lois, a vast lumpy caterpillar to her fierce little ant. "Well, well," he rumbled. "Ms Lane, you are proving to be a thorn in my side."

Lois had cast off her fear the moment she entered the room. "Just keeping you honest, Bruno."

His eyes moved to Clark. "I see you have a partner to look out for you on your little escapades now."

"Kent?" Lois scoffed. "He's just tagging along while I show him the tricks of the trade."

Mannheim reached out and plucked a wilted chive off of Clark's shoulder. "Like digging through trash?"

"Whatever it takes to get the dirt on you, Bruno."

Mannheim's eyes flickered; apparently he didn't like being called by his first name. He took her chin in his hand and lifted it. "I think, Ms Lane, that you should be more cautious about the dirt you dig in, or you may find yourself digging a hole from which you will not emerge. And you," he sneered at Clark, "I suggest you grow a pair and not do whatever some pushy broad tells you to." He released her chin. "Now, I'm not going to call the cops this time, because I'm a reasonable man. But remember that even reasonable men have limits. Please escort Ms Lane and her apprentice safely out," he said to his bodyguard. He spent a long time studying Clark's face. "Mr. Kent," he said as if memorizing it. "Stay safe," he advised them as the guard took their arms.

"Did you see the look in his eyes?" crowed Lois once they were well out of range of watchful eyes. "I've got him rattled now."

Clark wasn't so sure about Mannheim, but she had certainly managed to rattle _him_. "Are you always so, uh..."

"Brave?"

"--reckless, when chasing a story?"

Lois pivoted and put both hands on his shoulders. "Clark," she said, her voice very serious. "Mannheim is a dangerous man and he intends to control Metropolis by any means necessary. I'll do anything to protect this city and expose the truth about him. _Anything._ "

Clark met her eyes for a moment. Then he fumbled in his pocket. "I got something out of the dumpster that looked interesting."

"What? You said you didn't find anything!"

"Well, I had a hunch from the sound of your voice that someone was there, so I decided it might be better not to say anything."

Her eyebrows tilted upward as she grabbed the piece of soggy paper from his hand. "This is an order for titanium-vanadium alloy." She whistled. "A lot of it."

"Enough to build a couple of airplanes, it looks like."

"So why is Mannheim buying incredibly strong, light metal in quantity?" Lois asked the air. She slipped the fax into her handbag and punched Clark lightly on the shoulder. "There's hope for you yet, rookie," she announced, then turned to stride down the street toward the _Daily Planet_ once more.

**: : :**

_From: Clark Kent_  
To: Bruce Wayne  
Subject: Re: So... 

_"Wayne at Wayne dot com?" Keeping it simple, I see._

_I'm glad to hear you're back safely. I'm sure Alfred and Ma are thrilled to see you. It's funny you mention big plans; I've got something I need to talk about too. It's something I probably should have told you about sooner, and you'll probably be unhappy I didn't, and with some reason, and...well, it's complicated, and like you I'd rather talk about it face to face. We'll have to arm wrestle to see who gets to go first._

_Right now I'm working on a story with Lois Lane--maybe you've heard of her? We're investigating someone you may also remember, a Metropolis businessman named Bruno Mannheim. You'll understand if I can't share any details of that over email as well, although that's not the news I really need to talk to you about. I'm hoping to get back to Gotham and see you soon, but I can't risk missing anything on this assignment, so forgive me if it takes me a few days. I'm looking forward to seeing you again. A lot._

"Lois Lane? Oh my." Alfred made a _tsking_ noise as he measured Bruce's shoulders. "She's a formidable reporter, quite pugnacious, extremely driven."

"Sounds like Clark's type," Bruce said.

Alfred expressed some very complicated concept with one eyebrow, but he held his tongue.

"And investigating Mannheim. That could be dangerous." Bruce fidgeted and Alfred made an impatient sound in response, snapping the measuring tape. "I don't think I like it."

"I believe that both you and Master Clark are familiar with amazing technological device called a 'telephone.' As befits its name, this advanced device allows you to speak across great distances in what today's youth call 'real time," sir."

Bruce snorted. "Thank you, Alfred. But I'd rather talk to him in person." In person, where he could check Clark's body language for signs that he had wandered into "too crazy" territory and carefully back off if it looked like Clark thought he'd lost his mind. Which he probably would.

And anyway, phones were too much of a security risk.

"You've certainly filled out in the last four years," Alfred said, patting Bruce's shoulders. "I'll get the tailor your measurements this afternoon and you can go in for alterations next week."

"I guess a rented tux will have to do until then," Bruce said. "And maybe an off-the-rack suit. But I'll need to assemble a full wardrobe."

Alfred turned and whisked at a spotless china figurine on the bookcase with his handkerchief, removing non-existent dust. "Then I take it that means you have no plans to leave Gotham in the near future?"

"I've no intention of leaving Gotham again," Bruce said, and watched Alfred's shoulders twitch, just once. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to settle down, I'm afraid."

Alfred nodded. "I assumed not, sir." He put away his handkerchief. "But you are home, and that is a great comfort to all of us who care about you. I shall make you some lunch and then deliver these measurements." He gestured toward the little golden handbell on the table. "As always, sir, you are to ring if you need me."

Bruce chuckled. "You know I hate that."

"Indeed, sir." Alfred faded quietly from the room and left Bruce alone with his thoughts.

**: : :**

Martha Kent was finishing up the evening dishes when she heard a light tap on her door. Frowning (Alfred always knocked three times with a precise, metronomic rhythm; Clark never knocked at all), she dried her hands and went to answer it.

A tall young man stood on the doorstep, ducking his head almost shyly. "Hello, Mrs. Kent," Bruce Wayne said. "I wanted to come by and--"

His sentence ended in a muffled mumble as she threw her arms around him. "When did you get so _tall_?" she exclaimed, laughing with wet eyes. "Come in, please--have some tea."

He placed a bundle wrapped in some kind of brocade on the table as she poured him a cup, peering around the little bungalow with an avid, almost greedy look in his eyes. "Is that--"

She picked up the framed photo and put it on the table. "I took that last month, the day he graduated from college," she said. "He looked so stiff and formal in his official photo, it didn't look anything like him."

Bruce picked the photo up in both hands, holding it like a relic. Clark's face in the picture was sun-dappled, his eyes crinkled shut and his head thrown back in laughter. "This looks like him," he said, his voice low, and Martha turned away to busy herself with finishing the dishes.

When she returned to the table he had his expression schooled to normality again. "I brought you something," he said, unwrapping the brocade cloth to reveal a small rosewood box covered with delicate carvings: roses, lilies, and vines twining in endless loops, flowing from one to the other.

"Why Bruce, how beautiful," she exclaimed, taking it from him. "Did you get this in Nepal?" She held it to the light, running her fingers along the graceful carvings. She could hardly bear to tear her eyes from it, but when he didn't answer she looked over and saw that he was looking down at the table, his color a little high.

"The monks told me it would help to focus my thoughts to do something with my hands," he muttered.

She blinked at him, then put the box down on the table. "Did you make this, Bruce?"

He nodded once, glancing at her and away.

"It's exquisite," she said, touching one of the sinuous flowers. "You can see it was made with love."

He reddened a little more and took a long sip of his tea. "Open it," he said after a while. Martha found the little metal clasp and swung it open, and a piece of paper fell out. She unfolded it and frowned at the writing for a while until it sank in.

"This is...the deed to our old house in Smallville," she said.

He nodded, still looking intently at his tea. "I wanted to wait until Clark was here too, but..." His voice trailed off and he shrugged.

"Does this mean I'm fired, Mr. Wayne?" she said sharply.

Bruce jumped up in horror, sloshing his tea everywhere. "No, no, Mrs. Kent, never! This is your job for as long as you want it. It's just--you were always here for me, and it meant a lot, and...I wanted you to have your home back." He busied himself mopping up tea, not meeting her eyes.

Martha held the deed in her hands, remembering. The threshold Jonathan had carried her over, her veil catching on the splintered door and making them laugh. The sunny southern bedroom they woke up in together for years. The bathroom with the claw-footed bathtub her beautiful new boy had splashed and chortled in.

"Thank you," she said. "It seems that I have two homes now."

Bruce ducked his head and muttered something inaudible when Martha kissed him on the cheek, then hugged her quickly and bolted from the bungalow, leaving her smiling.

**: : :**

Back in his bedroom that evening, Bruce opened his suitcase and took out two more boxes: a small one of pale golden beech wood, and a larger one of dark ebony. Bruce brushed his hand over the ebony box's carvings, remembering the weeks he had spent working on the wood, feeling it take form under his hands: curving mandalas that circled inward on themselves like dark wings, then out again, searching.

He undid the clasp and opened the box, reaching in to touch the midnight-blue silk, the finest weave he had ever seen. It came from the box with a whispering sussuration, like a shadow's voice at the very edge of hearing. He draped it over his shoulders, letting it drape down around his form. He looked at himself in the mirror, framed by flowing night.

Bruce Wayne burst out laughing.

Shaking his head, he folded the silk back up, feeling it warm and beguiling against his palms. Whatever foolish vision had come to him while meditating in Nanda Parbat, it was clearly nonsense in the cold light of a Gotham reality. He put the silk back in the box and closed the lid.

How Clark would laugh if he saw him acting out some ludicrous childhood fantasy.

He shook his head again and closed the latch with a quiet _click._


	3. Front Page News

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruno Mannheim invites Bruce Wayne to Metropolis for a tour and conversation, leading to some unexpected developments.

_From: Bruce Wayne_  
To: Clark Kent  
Subject: What a coincidence!

_You may (or may not) be surprised to hear that this morning I got a very polite and formal phone call from the very man you and Ms Lane are investigating. Mr. Mannheim would like to meet the newly-returned CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and would Mr. Wayne be interested in coming to Metropolis this evening?_

_Mr. Wayne is interested, yes he is. He is interested in a great many things, not the least of which is Mannheim Inc.'s great advances in Internet and cell phone technology. Did you know that at least 80% of the telecommunications on the Eastern seaboard get routed through at least one Mannheim subsidiary company? Impressive, huh?_

_And how is Mr. Kent?_

_P.S. Alfred briefed me on the redoubtable Lois Lane. What is your impression of her?_

_P.P.S. I had to be wayne at wayne dot com because for some reason "2fabulous4words at wayne dot com" was not acceptable. Lucius never lets me have any fun._

"Gotham? Earth to Gotham, stop daydreaming." Red-tipped fingers snapped in front of Clark's face, and he pulled his thoughts together with a start, reminding himself that he was currently on a Metropolis rooftop, not in a garden in Gotham.

"I'm sorry, Ms Lane."

"This isn't a report on a fashion show we're writing, Kent. Mannheim's up to something big, and it could be dangerous. So focus." She looked past Clark. "That goes double for you, Olsen."

Jimmy Olsen swallowed hard, his fingers fiddling with the camera around his neck. He seemed more afraid of Lois than Mannheim, Clark thought. "Yes, ma'am!"

Lois's eyes were narrowed as she peered through her binoculars at the front door of Mannheim's building, a hunting cat frozen in anticipation of the pounce. Clark watched people move back and forth in front of the doors, tiny figures like dolls to normal eyes at this distance. He felt frozen himself: should he have mentioned Bruce would be meeting with Mannheim? Should he have tried to keep his co-workers away so they wouldn't discover it? Either seemed like something of a betrayal, but doing nothing was also--

Lois hissed a breath between her teeth, and Clark focused back on the doorway to see a sleek black limousine pulling up. The car doors opened and Bruno Mannheim heaved himself out of one side. From the other emerged a tall young man, attractive in a polished, groomed sort of way, smiling widely at Mannheim.

Beside him, Clark heard Lois gasp. "Kent, isn't that Bruce Wayne?"

It was, of course. It had been four years and Bruce was taller, broader, but that wasn't why Clark hadn't recognized him. He had still been expecting _his_ Bruce, lean and intense, with a gaze ragged around the edges with pain. He hadn't been looking for someone sleek and handsome, with a charming smile and blandly friendly eyes. Clark watched Bruce chatting with Mannheim, looking respectful and deferential, and found his heart aching as if he were watching his friend throw himself in front of a bullet.

"You got an explanation for this?"

Clark tore his gaze from the classic lines of Bruce's face to meet Lois's annoyed eyes. "You know this guy, what's he doing here? What's he doing with _Mannheim_?"

"I--I don't know, Ms Lane. He's not--I mean, my mother worked for him, but I didn't see him that often, and--"

"Guys?" Jimmy's voice was strained. "I don't mean to interrupt, but why is someone setting up a rocket launcher on that rooftop?"

Lois and Clark both whirled to follow Jimmy's shaking finger as he pointed to an adjacent roof, where indeed, a man was in the process of aiming a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher directly at Mannheim's front door--and the car in front of it.

Lois barked a startling obscenity and scrambled for the fire escape, clearly intending to try and get there in time to stop him. Jimmy ran after her, clicking pictures furiously. They'd never make it. The man's finger was already on the launch button. Far away, so far away, Bruce Wayne's smile was still clear as a single star.

The rocket made a serpentine hissing sound as it left the launcher.

**: : :**

The limousine moved slowly through the Metropolis streets. Bruno Mannheim's deep bass voice scratched against Bruce's eardrums, explaining how a partnership of Mannheim Incorporated and Wayne Enterprises would be so mutually beneficial to both of them. "I have need of a base of operations in Gotham, you see," said Mannheim. "You have warehouses, shipping agreements, connections there. As for what you would gain..." He smiled. "I know what it's like, getting the family business when you're practically a kid, Bruce. It's a tough responsibility. A partnership with me would add the _pull_ , the experience you need to lead Wayne Enterprises wisely and well."

"Gosh, Mr. Mannheim," said Bruce. "You're right, taking over the family business is pretty daunting. It's so good to have someone who understands."

Mannheim expanded his chest, patting Bruce on the shoulder avuncularly. "So you'll sign the paperwork? We've got the lawyers ready to witness it right back at my place."

Bruce worried at his lower lip. "I don't know. It seems kind of rushed. I'd like more time to think it over. I mean, Wayne Enterprises really needs to get something more _concrete_ out of this."

"I told you, Bruce, about the project we're working on?" Mannheim's voice was as patient as a man explaining to a child that he had to eat all his vegetables to get to the dessert.

"Sure, and the exoskeleton designs look like they'll be great for undersea exploration or space station construction," Bruce dutifully parroted back the spiel Mannheim had given him, though he was unable to resist adding: "Though they look a little chunky and bulky to me. I don't know, I expected something more _cool._ " Mannheim appeared to be resisting the impulse to roll his eyes as Bruce added, "But it's still all a little vague, you know?"

Mannheim's smile was pleasant and unruffled, but Bruce knew he had to be starting to get impatient. Bruce had dodged and vacillated and put him off for more than an hour now. And he _needed_ those Gotham warehouses, Bruce was sure of it. Mannheim and the Syndicate head in Gotham, Roman Sionis, were technically allies, but it was an uneasy truce at best. Mannheim was hoping to expand his business into Gotham, bypassing--and maybe ousting--Sionis. But he needed a foothold there--a foothold that fickle, shallow Bruce Wayne could potentially give him. "Well," said Mannheim, "Perhaps we can find something more concrete for you _personally_ , Bruce. Surely a young, handsome man as yourself has...interests?"

Bruce let the question hang tantalizingly in the air for a moment. "I did develop a taste for single-malt whisky when I was living in Europe," he said. Mannheim brightened. "So I bought a nice little distillery in Scotland," he added, and enjoyed watching Mannheim's face fall again.

"You were seen at the ballet last night. The ballerina dames are gorgeous, aren't they? I could arrange for you to have a private meeting with Sylvie Castelyn, she's--"

"--Oh, I spent much of the evening after the performance with her. Lovely girl."

Mannheim's hand twitched once, as if looking for a larynx to crush, but his smile was perfectly even. "Well, if there's anything you need, anything at all, you know you can turn to me, right?"

"Oh, of course."

"So you'll...sign the paperwork?"

Bruce watched the shiny Metropolis scenery slide by the windows for a moment, pondering. "I just don't think I can today, Mr. Mannheim," he said at last. "I really need more time to think about it."

The limo eased to a stop in front of Mannheim's headquarters. Bruce could practically hear the sound of Mannheim's teeth grinding over the purr of the engine. He waited for the chauffeur to open the car door and stepped out, smiling broadly at Mannheim. "Thank you so much for showing me around the city, Mr. Mannheim. She sure is beautiful, isn't she?"

Mannheim started to say something polite, but the chauffeur suddenly shouted something very obscene in German. There was a deafening volley of _clicks_ as everyone but Bruce pulled out a gun, staring and pointing at a building in the near distance.

Bruce looked up and saw the rocket launcher pointing at them, half a mile away..

His body was moving before he fully realized what he was seeing, eyes scanning the area for cover. _Can't save all of them. If I tackle the chauffeur within the next second, I can get him far enough away that he might survive._ A complicated algebra of angles, blast shadows, force and velocity unfolded in his mind, lattices of probability, a schematic laid over the whole frozen scene. He was prepared for this. He had trained himself to be prepared for any possibility.

He was completely unprepared for every possibility to collide with something totally, shockingly new.

There was something in the air, impossible and bright. Bruce caught a glimpse of red and blue, and then it was _grabbing the missile with its hands_ , hurling it in a parabola into the sky. There was a thundercrack explosion and burst of light; Bruce blinked against it involuntarily, and the apparition was gone.

His mind reeled and for a moment he wasn't sure if he had just imagined it entirely. Then he saw Mannheim staring at the space it had been, his expression unreadable. "Gosh," said Bruce, "You didn't have to do all that to impress me, Mr. Mannheim. If _that's_ the working prototype of this project you're working on, I'm totally in!"

"It was not," Mannheim said, his voice steady and utterly bland. He turned to his guards. "Boys, you think maybe you should go looking for the man who just tried to kill us and not just stand here jawing?" The rustling murmur of disbelief and confusion-- _You saw it too, right? That was a guy, wasn't it? A flying guy?_ \--cut off abruptly, and Mannheim's men scattered.

"So...wait. Someone really tried to kill us? Someone really launched a missile at us?" Bruce's voice was shaking and he made no attempt to disguise it. Let Mannheim think he was afraid. And maybe he should be: a totally new factor, unknown and unprepared-for. It could wreck all his plans. Yet what was making his voice tremble was a strange and giddy exhilaration. Suddenly everything was wide open, a vertiginous vista that stretched to the horizon and beyond.

There was something else out there. Some _one_ else out there. Someone with access to mind-bending tech and the equally staggering bravery to use it.

"Some of my business associates don't appreciate the advances Mannheim Incorporated is making," Mannheim observed. It took a moment for Bruce to realize he was obliquely answering Bruce's question--his mind had been racing into unknown futures, leaving his body behind.

"Couldn't they just send you an email about it? Launching missiles seems a bit extreme."

Mannheim laughed kindly. "Brucie, you'll soon learn that guys like us have to deal with all kinds of competition. Now, about that contract..."

Bruce shook his head, not having to feign agitation. The police would be here soon and he'd have to endure endless, tedious hours of questioning. He had to get back to Gotham. He had to make sketches, do calculations. Find videos if possible. What velocity did that make of rocket reach? How strong would something have to be to wrench it out of the air? "I'm so sorry, Mr. Mannheim, but my nerves are totally shot. Metropolis seems like an awfully dangerous place." As he stared around at the rooftops as if afraid of death raining down on them, he felt a brief pang of regret: his half-formed hope of finding Clark after this meeting was obviously not going to come true tonight. "I'll--I'll talk to you later, okay?" He broke into a run, ignoring Mannheim's querulous request to give him a ride back to his car.

A few minutes later he was on his way home, his thoughts still whirling with glimpses of blue and red. Miraculous tech. Someone was out there saving lives. Someone _wearing a cape._

Maybe he wasn't totally crazy after all.

**: : :**

The image was blurred and indistinct, hardly more detailed than the famous pictures of the Loch Ness Monster or Sasquatch. A smear of red and blue, most definitely a humanoid figure, its back to the camera as it snatched a missile out of the sky. A swath of scarlet which appeared to be a cape of some kind obscured most of the body. " **Mystery Man Saves Millionaires!** " shrieked the headline, but Lois Lane's story stuck to the facts, objective and clear: an attempt on the lives of Bruno Mannheim and Bruce Wayne; a barely-glimpsed figure; the would-be assassin deposited bound on the doorstep of the police department a mere moment later.

"Good heavens, sir, you didn't tell me someone had tried to _murder_ you."

Leave it to Alfred, Bruce thought as he took a bite of English muffin, to totally ignore the flying man in order to fret about Bruce's safety. "I was fine, Alfred," he said absently. He tapped the picture. "What do you think of that? Some kind of anti-grav harness? Rocket boots?" He placed his mother's ornate little magnifying glass above the figure's feet, peering. "They don't look like they have any sort of propulsion, though," he muttered. "Maybe he was launched from some kind of machine? And that bodysuit! Something light enough to be form-fitting, yet reinforced enough to enhance strength to that extent...I've never seen anything like it."

"Perhaps a robot of some sort?"

"I don't think so, but the design is so advanced I guess anything is possible." _Anything was possible_. "Word on the street is that the assassin was doing a job for Roman Sionis. There's something big brewing between him and Mannheim. The Syndicate isn't going to be able to keep them from each others' throats for much longer. And if breaks out into overt gang war..."

"Word on the street? What exactly were you out doing until all hours last night, sir?"

Bruce took another bite of muffin and grinned at Alfred a bit sheepishly. "You noticed I didn't come in until late?"

"I did."

"There's no chance I can convince you I was out with that pretty ballerina?"

"None at all, sir."

"Mmh." Bruce chewed thoughtfully.

"I do hope you're not going to be so foolish as to leave me in the dark about your plans," Alfred noted.

"I wouldn't dream of it. But it's still only an idea, not a plan. Just...I want to do something for Gotham beyond being a CEO and a philanthropist."

"Most people would find those roles more than enough."

"I'm not most people."

"I had noticed that." There was neither admiration nor censure in Alfred's voice, just observation. "Also, a letter for you arrived."

As Bruce started to open the envelope (heavy cream paper, tastefully embossed), the computer chimed, the special tone Bruce had programmed for a certain email address. Bruce tucked the remainder of the English muffin in his mouth and lunged for it.

 _From: Clark Kent_  
To: Bruce Wayne  
Subject: What the heck are you doing?

You can imagine I was surprised to see you on the front page of the newspaper this morning. I'm curious as to why you're palling around with Bruno Mannheim. At the moment, I don't really care how advanced his communications tech is, I have a bad feeling about him. Lois and I don't have any definite proof, but I have a hunch, and it's not a good one. I really feel I need to warn you that being associated with him can only lead to trouble, Bruce--more trouble than having missiles launched at you, I mean.

Also, we need to talk about your rather extravagant present to my mother. She appreciates the gesture, of course, but do you really think that's an appropriate gift for your gardener?

I know we're both really busy, but I'll be coming to Gotham Saturday night no matter what. We can meet up in the gazebo like old times and hash some things out.

Please stay safe.

P.S. Lois is a force to be reckoned with. She's determined, brilliant, devious, and dedicated to fighting corruption. You may recall I've always found these to be appealing qualities.

"Hm," Bruce mumbled around his muffin. He looked down at the little square of paper in his hand and started to smile. "Guess I'll have to ask you to pick up that rented tux today, Alfred."

"Indeed?"

"An invitation to a party tonight, hosted by the one and only Roman Sionis." Bruce waved the invitation cheerfully. "And I wouldn't miss it for the world."


	4. Damage Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of the sighting of a flying man in Metropolis, both Clark and Bruce deal with rising tensions.

_From: Bruce Wayne_  
To: Clark Kent  
Subject: Re: What the heck are you doing? 

_Clark, I think you need to just chill out a little bit. So I had lunch with Mr. Mannheim, it's no big deal! He's been around a while, and I think I can learn a lot of things from him. His company is doing some amazing things--you should see his Internet servers, they're state of the art._

_Besides, the big news is (in case you didn't notice) THE GUY FLYING AROUND METROPOLIS, HELLO? Did you see him? Is he a human or a robot? Mr. Mannheim tells me he's working on a new prototype mecha, but that's way beyond any tech I've ever seen. Exciting times, exciting times._

_Anyway, I'll probably be home tomorrow night--there are so many things keeping me busy right now, it's a little hard to say. Roman Sionis has invited me to a party tonight, isn't that great? I'm sure it'll be loads of fun. You know how I always loved to party, Clark. But I'll try to be in tomorrow, we can meet up--the gazebo sounds great--and discuss your over-protective nature. As for that gift...it was to you as much as to your mother. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time. Maybe it's not an appropriate gift to one's gardener, but it's an appropriate gift to a friend, I think. We're still friends, right?_

_P.S. Ms Lane sounds like quite the little spitfire. Should I be jealous? Ha ha._

"Lane! Kent! Olsen!" Perry White's bellow made Clark wince and close the email window to hurry into the editor's office, where Perry was already haranguing Lois and Jimmy.

"A flying man does not just _disappear_ , Lane!"

"This one does, sir," said Lois stoically.

"Not a sign of him, sir," said Jimmy.

 _"Did I ask you?"_ Perry yelled at Jimmy, who flushed bright red. "You exist to get pictures, and besides that one blurry, barely-usable snap, I have yet to get diddly from you!"

"It's not like anyone _else_ got a picture of him," Jimmy ventured, albeit under his breath.

"I couldn't find anyone who got a better look at him," said Lois. "The man with the rocket launcher might have, but the police aren't letting us talk to him."

"Well then, you need to--"

"--Excuse me." Clark held up his hand as everyone turned to look at him. "I'm sorry, but...shouldn't we be focusing on the Mannheim story?"

Three sets of eyes stared blankly at him.

"I mean, isn't that more important?"

Perry was frowning at him as though he'd come to work naked. "More important than a man flying around and catching missiles out of the air, Kent? You've got a funny definition of 'important.'"

"Couldn't that be some kind of hoax? We'd look pretty foolish if we were chasing down an April Fool's Day joke."

"Kent," said Perry patiently, "First: It's June. Second: This flying character has made us number one in sales." He strolled over and patted Clark on the back. "But of _course_ we're not giving up on the Mannheim story. That's why I--hypothetically--have more than one reporter on my staff. Lane," he barked, pointing at her, "You're on this flying guy story."

"Yes sir!"

"And come up with some kind of catchy name for him, will you? 'Flying Guy' doesn't exactly sing. Give Kent your notes on the Mannheim case."

Lois looked mutinous, but the prospect of chasing down a man who could fly seemed to mollify her. "This way, Gotham," she said, "This is your lucky day--not just anyone gets to see Mad Dog Lane's notes."

**: : :**

Hours later, puzzling over the sheaf of crabbed, scribbled notes, Clark wasn't sure how "lucky" he was. He turned a piece of paper upside down to see if it made more sense of the scattered jottings, then turned it back. How did Lois create such lucid and incisive prose out of this mess? He frowned, squinting at a note about a "reciet." She couldn't even spell.

"That's what copy editors are for, Kent." Lois plucked the paper from his hands and Clark realized belatedly he had spoken out loud.

"Um..."

"Don't worry about it. Good to know you've got some kind of spine there after all," she chuckled, handing it back to him. "Though I would have guessed that already from the way you stuck up for the Mannheim case," she added more seriously. "I just wanted to tell you I appreciate your staying focused on Mannheim. It's a less flashy story, but sometimes the important stuff isn't flashy."

"Um, thanks."

Lois glinted an impish smile that made her look much younger. "Besides, this way I get the flashy stuff all to myself!"

"How's it going?"

The smile fell away into a frown. "Not so well. No better eyewitnesses, no sign of the guy at all." She whacked her palm with a fist. "But he'll be back. Nobody dresses up in a flashy costume to disappear and never be seen again." Relaxing a little, she tilted her head. "I've mostly been trying to come up with a more memorable name for him. I want it to end with 'man,' to stress that he's not some kind of robot."

"He's not?"

"Trust me, I know real muscles when I see them," Lois said. "And those were some real muscles," she added appreciatively as Clark's ears turned hot. "So, you know, something like 'Muscleman' or 'Skyman.' Maybe 'Uberman'? Nah, too scary."

Clark suppressed a resigned sigh. When his friends in the Legion had told him what name he would eventually be known by, he had been appalled at its cheesiness. But now...

"What do you think of 'Splendidman?'"

...Now that he'd heard some of the alternatives, he was beginning to think he'd actually gotten off lightly.

**: : :**

_From: Clark Kent_  
To: Bruce Wayne  
Subject: Re: What the heck are you doing? 

_All right, all right, I _got_ it, already! There's no need to keep dwelling on Mannheim's amazing Internet servers and microcircuit tech, blah blah blah. You do realize I'm working on an _expose_ of him, not some shill piece, right? I know what he's capable of. I just don't want you to get involved in something without all the information._

_Re: the flying guy, I'm still claiming it's a hoax. No, I didn't get a good look at him. Did you? Still, that's one of the things I'd like to talk to you about._

_I'll be in Gotham tomorrow. Should you really be going to a party hosted by Roman Sionis? He doesn't have the best reputation, you know. But neither does Mannheim, and you seem rather smitten with him. You always did like to flirt with danger. Please don't do anything too rash until we've talked. I'd call you, but it's...complicated._

_About the house thing, of course I think of you as a friend. I always will. I'm not sure how you'll feel after we have a chance to talk. I hope you won't be too angry with me._

_P.S. If I tell Lois you called her a "little spitfire," she'll probably come to Gotham with me and box your ears. Either that or she'd be flattered. It's hard to tell with her._

The chatter and glitter of the party flowed around Bruce in a disorienting swirl. He took a sip of his ginger ale and assessed the crowd as if sizing up the movement of armies: advance and retreat, feints, sorties and sallies. Everywhere there were different battles being fought. Hildegarde Vreeland was attempting to introduce her daughter to every eligible bachelor in the ballroom, making her way inexorably toward Bruce. The newly-elected Commissioner was talking earnestly with a councilman. In one corner, Tommy Eliot and the new D.A., Harvey Dent, were deep in conversation that seemed friendly, but something about their body language made Bruce distinctly uncomfortable.

Tommy's pale eyes flicked toward Bruce and Bruce looked away. He didn't really feel like interacting with his old acquaintance right now. Tommy nodded to Dent and started to make his way across the room, and Bruce's discomfort congealed into action. Approaching a young woman standing near the wall, watching the crowd, he smiled at her and said, "Would you like to dance?"

She looked up at him, and he realized she was younger than he had thought--only in her mid-teens, though her severe chignon of red hair and horn-rimmed glasses made her look older. Yet she met his gaze without blushing or looking flustered. "I'm not much of a dancer, Mr. Wayne."

"Oh, neither am I," he said with a grin. "But I've found that generally if you do something with style people will assume you know what you're doing."

After a moment, her serious expression gave way to an almost mischievous smile. "All right, then."

She was a better dancer than he would have expected, following his lead well as they moved around the floor in a sedate, formal waltz. "So why are you here tonight instead of doing...whatever you'd rather be doing?"

She chuckled, glancing up at him. "My mother wasn't feeling well, and my father didn't want to come alone. He's been having to make the rounds of these tedious things since he got elected."

"Since he--" Bruce broke off, startled. "Are you--" _Barbara Gordon_ , he started to say, then realized he probably shouldn't know Jim Gordon's daughter's name so readily.

He blinked at her, honestly taken aback--his last memory of Gordon's daughter was of a girl in pigtails playing Wendy in the Gotham Elementary school production of _Peter Pan_ \--and she took his confusion for a mental lapse. "Yes, I'm Commissioner Gordon's daughter," she said. "I assumed that was why you wanted to dance with me," she added a bit tartly.

"Not at all," he was able to answer honestly, smiling at her. "So what do you do in your spare time, when you're not being dragged to dreadful parties by your father?"

"Oh, I'd usually be at home with a book," she said. "I'm going to major in library science in college."

"Library _science_?" He echoed blankly. "Is that like...how to build libraries?"

She graced him with the look of eye-rolling condescension which is the specialty of fifteen-year-olds the world over. "It's studying how to organize, manage, and preserve collections of books."

"Oh," he said. "How fascinating." He kissed the tips of her fingers as the song came to an end. "Thank you for the dance, Miss Librarian."

She giggled, suddenly a girl again, and scampered back to her father, who was eyeing Bruce narrowly. _Damn._

"Bruce!" Roman Sionis approached him to hand him a drink with a comradely air, his blandly handsome face with its weak chin beaming. "I haven't gotten a chance to talk to you yet." Bruce applied himself to cosseting Sionis and his megalomaniac ego, although a part of his mind was always evaluating, always planning: where were the exits, what were the hidden agendas, where were the danger points? A gathering of people was a collection of lines of force and influence, like a network of light undulating through the room.

Then the door burst open and all the patterns tore and frayed, reshaping themselves as Bruno Mannheim entered the party, grinning hugely.

Beside Bruce, Roman Sionis made a strangled sound, his jaw dropping. "Shouldn't you be in Metropolis?" he snarled as Mannheim came up to them, flanked by variety of sharp-eyed men who didn't look like they were there to have a good time.

"Brucie, my boy!" announced Mannheim, ignoring Sionis entirely and flinging an arm around Bruce. "How great to see you here!" Sionis's face darkened to near-apoplexy at the snub, his eyes glittering like onyx gems in a carved mask, and Bruce felt unease brush down his spine at his feral expression.

From the way Jim Gordon's gaze was moving about the room and the way he had casually stepped between his daughter and the two "businessmen," Bruce wasn't alone in his assessment.

Barbara Gordon, Bruce noticed, was suddenly an inch or so shorter than she had been. She had quietly stepped out of her high-heeled shoes, he realized, and he had to struggle to keep from raising his eyebrows.

"I assume my invitation got lost somewhere, Roman old boy," Mannheim was explaining to Sionis. "Because surely you know I wouldn't want to miss my friend Bruce here being re-introduced formally to Gotham society!" He slapped Sionis on the back and Sionis went rigid, his hands opening and closing spasmodically. This was bad, thought Bruce: a hairs-breath away from open warfare between the Gotham and Metropolis Syndicates.

With Bruce Wayne as the catalyst.

"Mr. Sionis, Mr. Sionis," Bruce lurched in between them, slurring his words. "This is the _best_ party, simply the _best._ You sure do know how to throw them--all these gorgeous girls, all this fabulous booze." He grinned widely, but Sionis hardly even seemed to hear him. "I mean, look," Bruce went on, gesturing far too widely, "You even got Commissioner Gaylord to come!"

Both Mannheim and Sionis went quite still at the reminder, glancing over to where Gordon was watching them. The tension didn't leave the room, but it seemed to take a step back. "That's Commissioner _Gordon_ , Brucie," Mannheim corrected him.

"Yeah, right, that," Bruce said. "Hey, Commish!" He ambled unsteadily over to Gordon, Sionis and Mannheim following reluctantly in his wake. "He's got a lovely daughter," Bruce confided loudly to the mobsters. "She's going to be a library scientist. I was thinking," he said, peering at her, "Maybe I could hire you to re-do Wayne Manor's libraries when you're done with school. I've got this great plan," he said dreamily, waving his hands in the air. "Right now, all my books are mismatched. It's this crazy garish jumble. It's so tacky, I can't bear it. So I was thinking we could arrange the books by color--all the red books in the library, all the blue books in the morning room, and so on. To match the decor, you know?"

"That's not--usually how we organize books," she said cautiously.

"But usual is so _boring_ ," Bruce complained, blinking at her.

"My daughter is still a little young to be planning out her future," Gordon said before she could answer. "So I'd thank you to keep your hypothetical job offers to yourself."

The contempt on his face, which Bruce had been ready for, hurt less than the disappointment, which he hadn't expected at all. "Sure, sure," he slurred, grinning foolishly at one of the few men in Gotham he respected, "Didn't mean anything by it, you know? Just making a little friendly conversation." He hiccuped a little and hung onto Sionis for balance.

"Bruce, how about I introduce you to some more...appropriate dance partners?" Sionis suggested, taking his elbow. Bruce let him steer him away from Gordon's disdainful glare with a sense of relief that was only partially at seeing Sionis had regained his composure. Sionis even managed a frosty smile at Mannheim as he said "I'll let you catch up with Mr. Mannheim later."

For his part, Bruno Mannheim seemed to realize he had pushed Sionis a little farther than was practical, especially in front of the Commissioner. "I do hope so, Bruce. You'll have to let me host a similar party for you in Metropolis soon."

Bruce waved tipsily at Mannheim and let Sionis steer him toward a clot of debutantes with a growing sense of dismay. But it seemed to soothe Sionis's ego to introduce him to some of the most beautiful and influential people in Gotham, so he played along and let the mobster show off his connections to the cream of Gotham society.

All in all, Bruce reflected as he smiled at a flirtatious Veronica Vreeland, he had learned four valuable things this evening:

One, that Roman Sionis was much more emotionally unstable than Bruce (or Mannheim) had anticipated. This was alarming information: unstable people were harder to predict, harder to control.

Two, that Bruno Mannheim was feeling confident enough to deliberately antagonize Sionis. Also troubling.

Three, that it seemed likely that he would be able to convince Jim Gordon that, having come at last into his vast fortune, Bruce Wayne had given up any childish notions of heroism in favor of drunken revelry.

The fourth thing he had learned, Bruce Wayne mused as he admired Veronica's sapphire earrings, was that no one's eyes were as beautiful as Clark Kent's.

But then, he had learned that last lesson every day for the last four years.


	5. A Bat and a Bell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark is a reluctant guest of Bruno Mannheim, and Bruce is driven to action in response.

_From: Clark Kent_  
To: Bruce Wayne  
Subject: Are you having fun?

_The gossip pages are all abuzz about your performance at the Sionis party last night. If you intended to leave all of polite society assuming you're something of a rake and a scoundrel, then congratulations--mission accomplished._

_Don't forget I'm coming by today. I'm going in to the Planet for a little bit, then catching the train. If you have any other inspired ideas for fun things to do this weekend, I really wish you'd put them off until we've had a chance to talk. Okay?_

Clark grabbed the first clean polo shirt in the drawer and pulled it on, because he was _not_ going to fret over wearing exactly the right clothes to Gotham as if he were a teenage boy. He was an adult man, and well past being vain about his appearance, and--the dark blue of the shirt actually showed off his eyes pretty well, he thought as caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Slipping his glasses down his nose, he flashed a smile at the mirror. "Long time no see, Bruce," he murmured, then immediately felt ridiculous and shoved the glasses back up. _Grow up, Kent._

He got off the train at Gotham Central and was walking toward the subway when a limousine pulled up to the curb next to him. The tinted window slid down to reveal Bruno Mannheim's face. "Mr. Kent," said Mannheim. "It's a pleasure to run into you this fine day."

"Um, can I help you, Mr. Mannheim?"

Mannheim seemed to think this was amusing. "Yes, I'm hoping you can, Mr. Kent," he chuckled. "If you'd be so kind of to get in the car?"

"Well, I was kind of on my way to..."

"I am aware of that," Mannheim rumbled. "But I'm extending a rare opportunity to come to my place for dinner." When Clark hesitated, he added, "Vinnie, Razor, would you please help our guest into the car?"

As both his elbows were gently but firmly grasped by large gentlemen, Clark decided it might be wisest to play along.

For now.

**: : :**

"Can't I have my cell phone back, Mr. Mannheim?"

Mannheim gave Clark a deeply sympathetic look. "I understand, you're one of those young people today, always needing to be connected. But this way you can focus on the delicious meal we're sharing, and our delightful conversation. Your generation needs to think more about people and less about technology. Human relations. I'm doing you a favor, really." He gestured and Clark's wine glass was refilled for the second time. "So let's talk about your old friend Bruce Wayne."

"I told you, we're not that close. My mother is his gardener, but--"

"--Surely during the many years you lived so nearby you got to know him rather well?" Mannheim patted his thick lips with a linen napkin. "Mr. Kent, you seem to be under the impression that I wish our mutual friend Bruce harm, when nothing could be further from the truth. I've invited you here tonight so you could illuminate me on how best to make his life a little more pleasant."

"Pleasant?"

"Bruce is a nice fellow, but he doesn't seem to realize the benefits of working with me. I've offered him the usual incentives of wine, women and song, but the man's already practically rolling in booze and broads, and he doesn't seem the Philharmonic type, you know?" Mannheim leaned across the table, fixing Clark with a narrow look. "So what's his deal, huh? What do you get the man who has everything?"

Clark gulped down his wine as if he were nervous, letting his eyes dart around the room. "I don't think kidnapping me--"

"--Kidnapping?" Mannheim looked offended. "I merely invited you to a pleasant dinner."

Clark pushed back his chair. "May I go, then?"

"Sure, sure." Mannheim leaned back in his chair. "Gotham's a dangerous town, though, and I would be a bad host if I let you walk back in the dark. As soon as Razor gets back from his errands, he'll be delighted to give you a ride home. But until then, please. Have a seat. I'd just like to hear your reminisces about your childhood with Bruce."

Clark sat back down. Mannheim had no way of knowing he'd "invited" an alien with super-hearing and an eidetic memory into his Gotham hidey-hole. Clark had already picked up a fair amount of information: names, numbers, dates. But he was hoping for something more concrete, something that would give him a clear lead on Mannheim's activities. The longer he stayed, the more likely it was he would overhear something.

But as he picked up his wineglass again, for a moment all he could think about was Bruce Wayne, waiting for him at the Manor.

**: : :**

_From: Bruce Wayne_  
To: Clark Kent  
Subject: Re: Are you having fun? 

_It's almost seven o'clock, and no sign of you yet. You sounded quite disapproving in your last mail--have I incurred your wrath? Shall I beg for forgiveness on bended knee for my naughty behavior last night?_

_I've been having some fun, I admit it. But in order to have a truly optimal experience, I'd really have to have the right partner to share it with. There are many lovely people in Gotham, but they all seem to be lacking a certain intangible...something. A set of the jaw, maybe. A glint in the eye. I'll know it when I see it, and I'll keep looking until I find it._

_Don't be so disappointed with me, Clark. I'm the same Bruce I ever was--surely by now you know me well enough to know I'm never going to change?_

Bruce paced back and forth across the library floor, looking down at the phone in his hand. At his fiftieth turn, he flipped open the phone and punched out a number from memory, listening to the voice on the other end ("--number you have dialled cannot be reached at this time--") and grimacing. He glanced at the clock: eight o'clock. His fingers hesitated over the keypad for a moment, then tapped out a different number.

"Hello, is this Ms Lois Lane? I'm a friend of Clark Kent's, and I was wondering if he was working late with you right now?" He paused and listened, and his face wrinkled with chagrin, although his voice remained light and friendly, "Yes, this is he. You have a good memory for voices, Ms Lane." The voice on the other end spoke again, and the chagrin disappeared, replaced by a blank intensity. "Are you certain? Well, thank you, Ms. Lane, and I'm sorry to bother you."

"Any news?" Alfred appeared in the doorway as Bruce sat down at the computer.

"She says that Clark was at work for a few hours in the morning, but he left early because he wanted to make sure to catch the eleven-fifty to Gotham." Bruce's fingers danced across the keyboard, a pounding rattle. "I know he's not mad at me, so something went wrong along the way."

Alfred placed a sandwich on the desk with a hopeful but not optimistic air. Bruce hadn't touched a bite all day. "Don't take this the wrong way, sir, but how can you be so sure he's not angry at you?"

"I just know," Bruce stated with a final flourish of keys. "There we go."

On the screen, a window opened up, showing grainy video footage of people hurrying by, many pulling suitcases behind them. "Good heavens," said Alfred, peering over Bruce's shoulder. "Are those security cameras?"

"Gotham Central Station's records," Bruce said, shifting the video rapidly to the right time.

"I'm not sure this is technically legal," Alfred pointed out, but before he could say anything more Bruce went rigid in his chair, his eyes narrowing.

"Neither is kidnapping," Bruce growled in a voice that made Alfred glance anxiously at him. Frozen on the screen was Clark Kent, being escorted into a long black limo by two large men. "Mannheim," he grated.

The computer screen became a blur of opening and closing windows as Bruce hunched over the keyboard. "He's not at either of his Gotham penthouses. Or his two 'secret' safehouses. That means he has another one somewhere. Can't be far, he wouldn't risk a long car trip." He didn't even register the look Alfred gave him, torn between admiring and appalled.

"Shouldn't you call the police?"

Bruce shook his head, relaxing his shoulders with some effort. "He hasn't been missing for twenty-four hours yet. And I don't want to worry his mother if I can--" he glanced at Alfred, "--well, get things sorted out without having to tell her." He stood up. "I'll make some calls, see what information I can get. Then we'll act on it in the morning."

Alfred looked dubious, but nodded. "You...won't do anything rash, Master Bruce?"

Bruce was able to give him a genuine smile. "I won't do anything without considering it very carefully, Alfred. I promise."

He waited until the still-suspicious Alfred left the room, then threw open the trunk on the floor. In a few minutes he cast a critical eye on his reflection in the mirror: ninja-dark clothes, a mask covering his nose and mouth, black gloves. He checked the belt, pulling out and examining an assortment of _shuriken_ , then fastened it around his waist. The carved ebony box he hesitated over, touching the lid lightly, then put away.

He hadn't been lying to Alfred, he reflected as he walked his motorcycle silently down the drive. He wasn't doing anything he hadn't been considering for years. And he _was_ going to make some calls and get some information.

They'd just be made in person.

**: : :**

Mannheim had two safehouses in Gotham that Bruce knew about, one in the East End and one out near Cape Carmine. The East End safehouse was an abandoned textile factory in a crumbling brick building. Poised on the roof outside a skylight, Bruce felt a rush of adrenaline as he saw the guard standing below him. He breathed deeply and evenly, trying to temper the surge of anticipation: _at last, at last, I'm going to strike a blow for Gotham, for my parents, for everything good and true in this city. For everything I love._

As he dropped through the skylight toward the guard, he thought a name like a talisman.

The gun skittered across the catwalk with one kick, and a sharp jab to the stomach doubled the guard over, wheezing. Bruce grabbed him from behind, bending him backwards. "Where's Mannheim?" he said, keeping his voice low.

The man choked something unintelligible and writhed in Bruce's grip. Bruce slammed him against the handrail. "I _said_ , where's Mannheim?"

There were running steps below the catwalk. "There's some guy up there! He's got Jerry!" a voice yelled, and there was a _ping_ of a bullet against the rail.

Out of time. Bruce readied a grapple, shook the hapless Jerry one more time. "Talk," he growled, with a push that threatened to send him over the railing.

He saw the whites of Jerry's eyes flash in the dim lighting as the man twisted in his grip. Then there was a sharp blow to his left shoulder. Jerry scrambled away, the bare knife glinting in his hand, as bullets buzzed around them, yelling "Stop shooting, you morons!"

Bruce shot the grapple, let it carry him upward to the roof. He looked down to see a scattering of red drops falling from his dangling left arm, spattering the catwalk as he was jolted toward the skylight. He crawled onto the roof, leaping out into the shadows before the guards could make it up the stairs, the pain in his left shoulder starting to blaze toward bitter agony.

Failure.

**: : :**

There was a ticking sound, a low, steady metronome in the silence of the library. Not from the grandfather clock, standing stopped in a corner. Bruce sat in his father's leather chair and listened to his blood drip to the ground, trickling down his arm, gathering then falling from his dangling fingers drop by drop.

The moonlight through the open window fell across a bust of Shakespeare, which seemed to stare at him disapprovingly. _You were silent, you were swift, but they feared Mannheim more than you. You have failed._

His head swam, a wave of dizziness making the room waver at the edges. Blood loss. Next to the chair he saw the tiny golden bell, unrung for so many decades. He could call Alfred to him, stop the bleeding. But why? His dream was over, failed as soon as it began. Clark was in danger and he hadn't helped, Gotham was in danger and he was bleeding, maybe dying, impotent and useless.

The guard had called him "some guy." Some guy. _Some guy_ was never going to be a force to stop chaos in Gotham. The city needed more than that. Gotham ran on fear. The citizens were afraid of the thugs. The thugs were afraid of their bosses. And the bosses were afraid of no one.

The room whirled again and Bruce blinked hard. There was a high whine in his ears, and a thought at the edges of his half-delirious mind that he groped for. Fear. They hadn't been afraid of him.

He had to be more.

More than human.

More than fearless.

To be more.

He had to be fear.

A darkness at the window, silent wings. A shape wheeled through the moonlight, casting mad shadows around the room, and through the pain Bruce felt the old terror grip him, freezing his muscles. The shadow landed on the bust of Shakespeare, folding leathery wings around its body and gazing at Bruce.

Bruce met the bat's inhuman and merciless eyes, and he saw the answers he needed there.

The handle of the bell was smooth and warm in his hand. Its golden chime drowned out the inexorable beat of his dripping blood, drowned out his doubts.

_I shall become a bat._


	6. Dark Knight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Clark Kent stalls Bruno Mannheim, a shadowy vigilante makes his debut in Gotham.

Bruce Wayne crouched in the shadows outside the windows of Bruno Mannheim's second Gotham safehouse. His left arm ached and he still felt lightheaded from loss of blood. He shook his head and felt the makeshift cowl he and Alfred had cobbled together shift with his motion. The silken cape was gathered around him, clutched in his gloved hands.

This was madness, he thought for an instant. The cape would catch on something, leave him dangling from a fire escape like a grotesque pinata. The ridiculous ears would break off. The guards would merely laugh. Madness.

Then he took a deep breath, closed his eyes. Remembered the implacable and unfathomable eyes of the winged shadow that haunted him. He was that shadow. He was the spirit of vengeance itself. He was the night, come to life to punish the wicked. He was more than human. Less than human. He was fear incarnate. A dark knight.

When he opened his eyes again, he was no longer merely Bruce Wayne.

He crouched in the shadows outside an old storage facility for garden supplies and statuary on the waterfront. The light from the Cape Carmine lighthouse stabbed by in regular bursts, sweeping across the interior. Statues inside gleamed as they caught the light for a moment: angels, gods, gargoyles. Mannheim's guards moved cautiously around the building. He counted five: four guards and an overseer. They'd have been warned that a man had broken into another safe house, had escaped despite his injuries. They would be prepared to confront a wounded, desperate man.

They would not, however, be prepared for what he had become.

He moved soundlessly to where the electrical lines entered the building, severing them in one quick cut. The building plunged into darkness, and he heard voices raised inside: concerned, not panicked.

Not yet.

Moving to one of the upper windows, he watched the vast sweep of the blinding lighthouse beam revolve by, timing it. As it approached once more, he broke the window, a sharp sound in the silence. He heard someone cry out, saw someone point upward.

As the lighthouse beam moved by, he stepped into its path against the window, lifting the cape like wings against the light, letting his shadow flash across the warehouse walls, magnified and looming.

There were more cries from within--higher this time, the sound of frightened prey rather than rational human beings, and he felt his mouth tighten with a grim satisfaction, an exultation of the hunt. The lighthouse beam rushed away and left the storehouse in utter darkness once more. Feet first, he went through the window, shooting a grapple so his cape billowed around him, a silken rustling in the shadows. He landed on the first guard, knocking him out immediately. Easily dodging a panicked gunshot from guard two, he kicked the gun from his hand and looped another line around his feet. He let the guard shriek once, then twice, before slapping an adhesive gag across his mouth. In the sudden echoing silence, he hoisted the man up toward the ceiling.

The screams of terror broke any semblance of order in the remaining three guards. As the lighthouse beam passed again, it picked out and illuminated the faces in the statues: gargoyles leered in the flickering light as the caped crusader lashed out again from a different location, knocking out the third guard with a quick jab and trussing him upside-down. Then he melted back into the shadows, waiting.

"What the hell was that?" shouted the remaining guard to the overseer. "Some kind of monster?" The guard's teeth were chattering loudly. "Some kind of demon thing! A bat-thing!"

They were heading unknowingly toward where the second guard was still hanging unconscious. "It was a man, stupid!" snapped the overseer, his voice tense.

"That thing wasn't just no man, no way! It had wings! And devil ears! It was some kind of...of...bat-man!"

The two rounded the corner and came face to face with the third guard, hanging like a spider's waiting meal, blood dripping from a cut on his face. They yelled in unison, and it seemed as good a cue as any: he dropped down behind them, cape slithering like membrane. "That's right," he said, his voice guttural with cold and merciless rage, and bashed their heads together.

Their screams cut off abruptly, leaving just the sound of the ropes creaking as their burdens swung to and fro. He leapt up to the catwalk where second guard dangled, his eyes showing ringed with white in the intermittent light, and grabbed him by the hair to yank him close.

"Where's Mannheim?" the Batman growled as he ripped the gag off. _"Talk."_

**: : :**

Clark twiddled a spoon in his fingers, ignoring Mannheim's baleful glare. He had regaled his host with several stories of his childhood with Bruce, making them long on useless detail and sidetracks, and taking care to dwell on how scatter-brained and unfocused Bruce was even as a boy. He was finishing up a ten-minute digression about the benefits of proper mulch when one of Mannheim's flunkies entered the room and whispered to his boss: "Call for you from Hammett, sir. I think--I think maybe you should take it."

Mannheim stood. "Please, continue to tell Moe your delightful tale," he said, gesturing to Clark as he left the room.

Clark continued discussing the differences between peat moss and bark chips as mulch with gusto, relishing Moe's glazed eyes. Most of his focus, however, was on listening to Mannheim's conversation behind the soundproof door..

"What the hell are you babbling about, Hammett?"

The tinny voice on the other end was frantic, hysterical. "I swear, boss! It was a demon! With red eyes!"

"No, no!" broke in another voice. "It was an army of vampires! There had to be at least twenty of them! With claws and fangs--"

"--Cut the nonsense, you hallucinating ninnies," barked Mannheim.

"Venturino told the head demon where you were, boss!" Hammett tearfully announced. "It's coming for you!"

"Oh he did, did he?" Mannheim's tone left no doubt that Venturino's employment with Mannheim was likely to be terminated soon, and perhaps painfully. "Did any of you blab about the lab in the flour mill?"

"No, boss! No, no, it didn't ask, we didn't tell!"

Mannheim clicked off the phone in mid-protest, muttering an obscenity. "It's that Sionis brat up to something, I know it," he said. "The man's a rabid dog, needs to be put down."

Mannheim's smiling re-arrival in the room forced Clark to cut short his Saga of Mulch. He almost felt regretful about that, as it had become something of a Mulchiad. "Clark, old boy, this has been a delightful meal, but I'm afraid I'm a busy man and I can't entertain you all night," Mannheim announced. He handed Clark his cell phone. "And look, here is Razor at the door now. How convenient. Razor will drop you off at the train station--I'm sure you understand that we have to blindfold you again? For my privacy, of course."

Clark nodded and smiled. "I understand you perfectly, Mr. Mannheim." Whatever bizarre psychological warfare Sionis was up to, it had Mannheim rattled, and that was a good thing.

Mannheim shot him a hard look as Razor tied a silk handkerchief around his eyes. Then he slapped him on the back, hard. Clark took care to stagger a bit. "Fare well, my friend," he said, "Give Bruce my regards when you see him." He left the room at a pace that was attempting not to look hurried.

Razor didn't seem interested in hearing any gardening tips, so Clark stayed silent in the car as it traveled an elliptical route back to the station. "Get out," was the only thing his chauffeur said, and Clark was more than happy to.

As the car pulled away, he opened his cell phone, gave it a dubious glance, and dialed Bruce's number.

"Clark!" Bruce's voice sounded strained, and Clark felt a pang of conscience. "Where are you?"

"Hi Bruce. I'm so sorry, I got kind of delayed coming back to the Manor. I just got free."

"No problem," said Bruce. "None at all. I haven't been sitting around and worrying about you or anything," he said with a wry chuckle. "In fact, I ended up going out and running some errands, so I'm not at home right now anyway." There was a slight pause. "But I'll be heading back soon. To tell the truth, I'm...not feeling very well tonight. A little run down, I guess."

He sounded tired, Clark realized. There was a drag to his voice, as if he were in pain. But underneath that was a strange undercurrent of satisfaction, almost of triumph. "Are you okay?"

"Fine, fine. Just...need to get some rest, I think. I'll be home in an hour or so, no later than midnight."

"Okay," Clark said. "I've got something I need to look into, but then I'll come to the Manor." He paused, biting his lip. "You know, I just realized I haven't heard your voice in four years," he said.

"I know. Oh, I know," Bruce replied. "Are you...terribly angry at me, Clark?" The triumph in his voice was gone, replaced by something startlingly close to worry.

"You ridiculous man," Clark said. "Like you wrote, I know you well enough by now to not be surprised by anything you do." He should sound annoyed and not affectionate, he knew; but hearing Bruce made it impossible to keep even a simulacrum of irritation in his voice.

"Good. I'm glad," said Bruce. "I think...I think maybe I should head home now. I'm feeling a little dizzy."

"I'll be there soon," said Clark. He hung up the phone, looked around to make sure no one was following him, and ducked into the shadows, shifting into super-speed.

Moments later he was in Metropolis once more, moving too quickly for most people to see, scanning different abandoned flour mills until he found one with suspiciously high security.

X-ray vision and super-hearing made picking the lock easy; he sped past security cameras and floated over tripwire laser beams until he found himself in a lab filled with humming computers.

He didn't want to risk leaving evidence of tampering on the hard drives, so he ignored the computers, looking at the bits and pieces scattered on the counters. There were no useful schematics labeled "top-secret super-weapon," but there were pieces of plastic and metal in odd shapes.

Clark picked up one of the pieces of metal--and almost dropped it again. It was ludicrous, but the metal seemed... _wrong_ somehow, oily and vicious in his hands. He turned it and it gleamed in the dull light of the LEDs. At a certain angle there was an odd glimmer, and he suddenly realized he could see his own hands through it. The metal had gone perfectly transparent.

Frowning, he put it back on the table in exactly the position he had found it. As he looked at it, he realized he was wiping his hands on his pants as if to rid himself of something clammy and clinging. He focused his microscopic vision on it with an odd reluctance, then recoiled as the molecular structure of the metal came into view: a strange, disturbing tangle of atoms that seemed somehow fundamentally...cruel?

Shaking his head, he backed away from the chunk of metal and made his way out of the lab with a sense of relief. How Bruce would roll his eyes: a cruel metal, one that felt wrong? He was clearly on edge lately, that was it.

Thinking of Bruce rolling his eyes at him, imagining his sardonic tone, reminded him that Bruce would be back at the Manor waiting for him.

The front gates of the Manor suddenly loomed in front of him and Clark realized that he had put on a burst of speed without even realizing it. He forced himself to slow down, to land a safe distance from the grounds and walk the rest of the way at the agonizingly slow pace a normal human would.

Soon Bruce would know everything, and then--when he finished being angry at Clark for keeping such secrets for so long--Clark could be himself around Bruce, could talk to him about his double life, could invite him to be part of that life.

He was humming happily to himself as he knocked on the Manor door, and his reaction to Alfred Pennyworth opening it rather than the person he wanted to see might have been less than gracious.

"Where's Bruce?" He peered past Alfred into the dark entrance hall. "Is he not home yet?"

Alfred did not move from the door. "He is. But I'm afraid," he added as Clark broke into a smile and tried to get around him, "I can't allow you to see him."

The weight of disappointment was more crushing than Jupiter's gravity--and Kal-El knew that first hand. "What? Doesn't he want to--"

"--Master Bruce is quite anxious to see you," Alfred reassured him. "But he is not feeling at all well. In fact, he collapsed into bed shortly after returning home." Alfred's eyes searched his face for a long moment. "Frankly, I suspect he would prefer I wake him up to tell him you have arrived. But I'm sure you understand my desire to let him sleep."

"Is he all right? He's been working himself too hard again, hasn't he?" A glint of exasperation cut through Clark's worry. "When he wakes up, tell him that I'm not going to let him ruin his health, the stubborn, pig-headed..."

Alfred smiled as Clark groped for the right word, his expression a complicated mix of chagrin and amusement. "I shall pass that message on. But let me say that I'm greatly looking forward to seeing you inform him of that yourself. It should be a conversation to remember."

Clark chuckled, but privately had to admit he didn't want Alfred or anyone else around when he finally got to see Bruce in private for the first time. As he silently slipped into the bungalow, casting a last glance up at the distant darkened window of Bruce's room, he was thinking of exactly how and where he was going to kiss and touch that stubborn, pig-headed, beautiful brave idiot when he got a chance.

It was something he hadn't allowed himself to think of often, but now, with Bruce practically in sight, he couldn't seem to keep his mind off it.

_No more secrets in the morning, Bruce. I promise._

**: : :**

Roman Sionis watched his cringing flunky through half-lidded eyes. "Something is going on," he murmured, out loud but to himself.

"Someone--or something--is attacking Mannheim," said Dr. Primus beside him, rubbing his chin.

"Idiot," said Sionis without heat, merely stating a fact. "That's what he _wants_ you to think. It's a facade, a mask to fool the unwary and unsubtle mind." He rose from his carved ebony chair, feeling energy coursing through him, a new resolve, a certainty he had been lacking. "But _my_ mind is neither! I see through his little games. He attempts me to distract from the fact that he is ready to strike. He plans to smash me down, to obliterate me and create a gang than spans both our cities." His hands clenched in front of him. "But the fool hasn't counted on my seeing through all his veils and smokescreens to the rotten heart beneath. He hasn't counted on my striking first." Fresh indignation made his heart race with something like exhilaration as Roman remembered Mannheim's sneering laugh at his party-- _his_ party, _his_ house. Seizing the attention of _his_ guest.

Mannheim had caused him to lose face in front of Gotham society, and now Sionis would reveal his true face to all of them. The true face of his power. The true--

"Roman, this is unwise," said Dr. Primus, wringing his hands. "To reveal your hand now, so precipitously after all our work--you will ruin our advantage! I must protest!"

Without ceremony, Roman Sionis drew his gun and shot Dr. Primus between the eyes.

As the scientist's body slumped to the ground, Roman looked at his men. "Does anyone else feel the need to protest?"

Nobody did.

Gun still drawn, Roman strode through the conference room and flung open the double doors to stand on the veranda that overlooked the courtyard filled with gleaming black powersuits, lined up like an army, waiting to be filled with Roman's men. He looked down and they looked back up at him, each one a mask that revealed his power, turning his men into extensions of himself. He saw his face reflected in the mirrored black visors a hundred times over, magnified and multiplied into glory. He raised his free hand to them in benediction.

"Go with my blessing." His whisper echoed off the walls until it sounded like it was coming from the rank on rank of silent warriors. "Today I crush my enemies. Today I take my place as the ruler of Gotham and of Metropolis."

**: : :**

Three long and sleepless hours later, and Clark was still gazing at the closed and unmoving curtains of the Manor in the pearly grayness of dawn when his phone rang. He glanced at it and frowned--what was Jimmy Olsen doing calling at four AM?--then picked up.

"Mr. Kent?" Jimmy's voice was breathless and hushed. "Ms Lane didn't want me to call you, but...I think you need to get back to Metropolis. There's something going on."

His breath caught, and Clark could hear over the line a vast distant roar, like a swarm of metallic bees.

"Something...really big."


	7. Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Open warfare breaks out between Roman Sionis and Bruno Mannheim for control of Intergang.  When their rival armies meet halfway between Gotham and Metropolis, someone is there to stop them.

"Superman! Whoever you are! Red and Blue Guy! _Superman!_ I knew it! He's here, and he'll stop you!"

Lois Lane's voice reached him over the vicious drone of engines, and Clark pivoted to locate the source.

Of course, there she was--grasped in the iron claw of the largest of three or four dozen silvery-purple mecha looming in the skies above Metropolis. As Clark gaped, her fists drummed on the visor that protected Bruno Mannheim's face. "Put me down, you big bully!"

Mannheim's booming laugh was magnified across the city as he gazed at the small bright figure standing in the air, confronting his troops. "'Superman,' eh? That's the dumbest name I ever heard. Oh well. Come to battle me for the right to control Metropolis...in your nifty pajamas?"

Clark-- _Superman_ \--crossed his arms, feeling his cape snapping around him. "Metropolis controls her own destiny, Mannheim. Not me, and certainly not some tin-plated tyrant like you."

"Oh," Mannheim sneered, "You're some kind of Dudley Do-Right, I see. The colors suit you, then." With his free hand, he gestured to his men. "Okay, boys. Let's give the suits a little practice before meeting Sionis."

Five of the mecha released a barrage of missiles at him while another five broke off to close with him directly.

Superman deflected the missiles upward into space a moment before his first opponent reached him. An armored fist slammed into his solar plexus and he grunted in surprise as pain twisted his muscles, a familiar sense of _wrongness_ making his head swim. That strange metal...

He jabbed a punch at one mecha while kicking another, keeping his blows controlled to avoid critically injuring the people in the suits. A visor shattered under his fist and there was a burst of static. Without pausing, Superman cracked together two of the other mecha and watched them careen out to sea, their pilots ejecting at the last second. Ignoring the wrenching pain from the roundhouse punches being aimed at him, he fought on.

"Miss Lane," he heard Mannheim say over the sound of shrieking metal. "You are becoming more of an annoyance than you are worth." Superman dodged another blow and looked over to see Lois attempting to jimmy open Mannheim's visor with her car keys. With a contemptuous flick of his wrist, Mannheim hurled her away from him, her gasp snatched away by the wind.

Superman broke away from the mecha attempting to grapple with him and swooped after her, picking her falling body out of the air as gently as possible. Her eyes opened in bewilderment as she realized she wasn't falling any more, then fixed on his in shock.

"It's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Ms Lane," Superman said, smiling.

"What are you doing?" she cried.

"Um, trying to save you?" He felt a brief spark of worry that she had recognized him as her hapless co-worker, but there was no recognition in her eyes.

"How are you doing this?" she said, looking around wildly.

"It's a little complicated," he said wryly, but she was already looking behind him, her eyes wide.

"Okay, okay, you can explain later--but you have to go get Mannheim!"

Superman landed on top of the _Daily Planet_ , letting her slide out of his arms. Looking up, he could see that Mannheim's little army was well to the south now, heading toward Gotham.

"I still get an interview later!" Lois yelled after him as he leaped back into the air. "I'm taking that as a promise!"

**: : :**

Batman looked up to see the skies of Gotham dark with powersuited figures--there had to be at least a hundred. He shot another grapple and swung between two buildings, releasing a new grapple just in time to break his fall and start a new parabola. The pain in his arm was a dull ache, dimmed by adrenaline. The memory of Alfred's face when he woke Bruce with the news of Sionis's action--tense, drawn, concerned but resigned--hurt him more.

His thoughts turned to Clark, turned away by Alfred, waiting in the bungalow. For a brief instant, he wondered why there was no sadness at missing him yet again. They were so close but so far, it should have been agonizing to realize he had slept through Clark's visit. And yet... Somehow he felt like everything was happening as it should. Something was going to happen. Something as mundane as waking up, something as momentous as a sky filled with flying mecha.

Something right.

Batman swung upward, angling around a skyscraper until he was almost level with the fleet flying through Gotham. Reaching into his belt, he pulled out a tab of plastic explosive. At the height of his next arc, he released the grapple and landed briefly on one of the gleaming black mecha. He heard the dull _whump_ as he pushed off, wind roaring in his ears, the grapple line singing, and the mecha sagged in the air, spiraling slowly toward the ground as smoke gusted from a shoulder joint.

Chaos broke out in the fleet, and there was a sharp whine of projectiles nearby as Batman faded into the early-morning shadows once more. Using rooftop heating vents to mask himself to infrared, Batman circled the army and struck again on the east side, sending another of Sionis's men to the ground.

But there were too many, and his guerrilla strikes were barely making a dent in the vast numbers. The mecha broke off their pursuit of him, wheeling in perfect unison to head north, toward Metropolis.

Batman swung after them through the increasingly lower buildings that filled the urban sprawl between the two great cities. He wasn't attacking them any more, he was watching their movements, keeping an eye on the way they moved together.

His eyes were narrowed thoughtfully as he slipped north through the meagre morning shadows, stalking the fleet.

**: : :**

Flying south, Superman caught up with Mannheim in a few moments. He darted between the bulky mecha, striking at the leader of the squad, but Mannheim gestured and two of his men swiveled to strike at Superman.

Superman dodged, his very flesh flinching unconsciously from the touch of that corrupt metal, and a missile hit him in the small of the back. It only knocked him down a few yards, but the acrid smoke filled his eyes and made them water, opening himself up to another hammerblow from a mecha. He fought back, grappling one more out of the sky, a barrage of punches disabling its controls and sending it crashing into a parking lot, but Mannheim continued inexorably south to where a massive fleet of Sionis's black mecha were waiting, hanging in the air.

The Gotham army was much larger than Mannheim's select group, but their machines were cruder, less deadly, so the battle was much more even than it seemed. Superman quickly became only a small part of the overall chaos as the two forces clashed in a maelstrom of violence. He smashed one of Sionis's machines to the ground and disabled another with a burst of heat vision, but there were too many to stop easily. He had to get to the source.

Looking for his enemy, Superman spotted Mannheim's suit in the air near the Highville library's distinctive faux-medieval ramparts. Another missile streaked by him, shattering a window, and Superman coiled himself to confront Mannheim. But as he launched himself at the boss, he heard a shrill, terrified cry imploring someone to _run!_

Below him, a woman looked back in horror at a boy in a red sweater, her hand outstretched as if to vainly grasp his across the distance between them. He had pitched forward onto the broken pavement and was now looking up, his eyes wide in something like wonder, as the shattered windows fell in a cascade straight at him.

Superman broke off his attack on Mannheim and shot downward.

**: : :**

As the two armies met with a shrieking of metal and shattering of glass, Batman nodded grimly to himself. He had enough data now, it was just a matter of getting back to Gotham and stopping this madness.

He swooped through the chaos, catching a grapple on the battlements of the Highville library, releasing another to return to Gotham--

A shriek rang out over the squeals of stressed metal. Batman looked down, took in the scene in an instant: the horrified mother, the endangered child.

With one smooth motion he reversed his direction, skimming low, his cape flung wide on the wind.

**: : :**

Putting his back to the boy and facing the hail of glass, Superman let the glittering shards shatter on his chest and face, throwing his arms out to shield the child.

As the last fragments and dust sifted to the ground, he turned his head to reassure the boy.

**: : :**

Spreading his cape wide, Batman swooped in to shelter the boy beneath its folds, wrapping his arms protectively around the small frame. The child's wide blue eyes stared up at him as he braced himself for the impact: the light nomex would deflect the worst of it, but it would still...

Would still...

No blow fell.

Puzzled, Batman cautiously turned around.

**: : :**

The din of battle, the shiver of shattering glass, the shouts and cries of terror: all fell away and froze into silence as their eyes, for the first time in four long years, met.


	8. An Oath Renewed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Superman and Batman take on two small armies together.  Then they have some catching-up to do.

The dark figure before him was cloaked and cowled, swathed in shadows and danger, his eyes hidden. But Clark knew the jawline better than his own, knew the very texture of those aristocratic lips by heart. Knew even the way the man stood, the easy grace of his shoulders and the sweet power of his hips.

"Oh," Clark whispered, startled into joy unforeseen. "Oh."

Bruce was staring at him--no, it wasn't Bruce, not quite. Not simply. Just as he wasn't simply Clark anymore. The beautiful, dangerous being, who was also his friend and his heart, was staring at him, and the moment seemed to stretch forever, long enough for Clark to remember all his lies and secrets, long enough to feel despair brush cold across his soul.

And then he heard the last shards of glass falling to the ground and realized that it had been only fractions of a second, that his thoughts had raced ahead of events in their eagerness and shock. Bruce was still staring, but something was tugging at the stern corners of his mouth. "I solemnly swear to live by honor and for glory..." he whispered, and Clark caught his breath at the sound of that childish oath said by this menacing figure.

"...to protect the innocent and comfort the wronged..." Clark continued, his voice hoarse.

"...and to be in all things brave and true," they finished together.

"Yes," said Bruce.

"What's your plan?" Clark said. Of course Bruce had a plan.

"Sionis will have a kill switch for his army." Bruce's voice was a low, grating rasp that seemed to affect Clark's body in startling ways. "I know him. He has to always have final control. If I find him I can stop his troops."

"I can keep them busy."

Bruce looked over his shoulder at the hundreds of battling mecha, and the quirk at the corners of his mouth deepened. "Of course you can. My God," he said. "Of course you can." He reached out and clasped Clark's shoulders for an instant, his grip fierce and demanding. "Come back safe to me."

"Always." There was no time for more; they both gave the dazed and wide-eyed boy they had just saved a reassuring smile or look, and then they took to the skies, each in their own way.

Superman threw himself back into battle, and mecha fell before him like petals in a hurricane. He focused on the Metropolis army, and even the strange _wrongness_ of Mannheim's suits didn't pain him anymore; it was as if he were clad in light, armored by sheer joy.

He and Bruce, fighting together once more. Just like old times.

Nothing at all like old times.

Like a totally new time, better than ever before.

There were too many of them. Fighting them alone, eventually they might have dragged him down. But now--

He heard himself laughing as he dodged another blow, a laugh of unfettered joy..

The battle was already over, Mannheim just didn't know it yet.

**: : :**

Batman dropped out of the sky, felt the line catch and fling him upward again, toward the clouds. Roman would be working from his family home rather than any other bolthole: his megalomania would require that the ghosts of his ancestors witness his triumph. Batman plunged downward, soared upward, dipping and swooping like his namesake, his thoughts fluttering almost as wildly.

 _Clark._ Clark's shy smile, Clark's gentle eyes. Clark flying in midair like some kind of mad butterfly made of steel and silk. It was insane, it was impossible, it threatened to unhinge the world entirely around Bruce.

It was _real._

Maybe he should feel angry, maybe he should feel betrayed. Certainly he was wondering just how long Clark had been able to defy gravity and catch missiles out of the sky with his bare hands.

But mostly, manic elation was roaring in his ears, possibilities shattering around him like fireworks. It was like setting out to climb the highest, loneliest, unscaled mountain--and suddenly rounding a bend to find your oldest friend there, waiting with a smile and a helping hand to climb it with you.

It would be unseemly for Gotham's dark knight of vengeance to turn a somersault in midair from sheer excitement, of course.

Fortunately, it was early morning and no one had seemed to be watching.

**: : :**

_"Mannheim!"_ Superman called over the din of the battle. "Give up before it's too late!"

Mannheim swiveled to glare at him. "Are you still here? You fool, I'm _winning_ ," he snarled, pummeling another of Sionis's men to the ground. "Metropolis and Gotham will be mine--and that's only the beginning!" The hulking figure sprang at Superman, lethally fast despite its bulk, gleaming and deadly. "Know despair before you die, vermin!"

Superman met his blow like a thundercrack.

**: : :**

Roman Sionis stood before a bank of hundreds of monitors, each showing a flickering image of the battle: a symphony of mayhem, and he the shadowed conductor, the mind behind his dark and baleful Hydra. He gestured, and the screens swiveled to take in the bright figure in red and blue fighting Mannheim. They were both distracted; one concerted blow and it would be over for both of them.

"Don't do it, Roman," grated a low voice, and a figure dropped to the ground in front of him: a pillar of shadow, hidden by a mask, inhuman.

Roman had his gun out before the last syllables ghosted around the room, spitting fire at the demon. It merely flicked its cloak almost contemptuously, and Roman realized his hand was shaking. He stepped backwards, unable to tear his eyes away from the implacable, pitiless masked face, the eyes like pits of bottomless acid. The gun spun from his numb fingers before he even saw the figure's foot lash out, and he never saw the fist that plunged his world into darkness.

He carried with him into the void only a memory of uncanny power and a dark mask.

**: : :**

Superman's first blow cracked Mannheim's visor; his second shattered it completely, leaving Mannheim exposed as a broken snail. He howled something gutteral as Superman reached in and pulped his controls, then slumped in his seat like a puppet with its strings cut.

Superman hauled his limp body out of the smashed mecha, letting it fall harmlessly to the ground. He turned to realize that the only shapes remaining in the air were Sionis's men, and that they had surrounded him, arm-cannons trained on him.

Clark froze, but as he braced himself to shield Mannheim's unconscious body, all the mecha simultaneously lowered their arms and slowly, gently, drifted to the ground. Clark could see the men inside the suits pounding on the controls, yelling.

Superman couldn't help giving the paralyzed mecha a friendly smile and wave as he took Mannheim back to the Metropolis police.

**: : :**

Batman stood in the little gazebo, looking out over the rippling field of wildflowers to the ocean. The morning sunlight was growing bright, long rays slanting across the white-painted wood. He probably was a ridiculous sight, a dark-cloaked figure lurking in a cheerful sun-washed gazebo. His shoulder throbbed and he put a hand to it, waiting.

At first he thought it was just a glint of sunlight on the water. The red-and-blue figure came in from the sea, skimming above the waves like a bright bird. Without thinking, Batman swung himself onto the roof of the gazebo to see it better as it drew ever closer: a figure floating impossibly above the field, solid and light. Long, lean, muscled lines, broad shoulders, dark hair with a single curl falling over blue eyes filled with courage and joy and a dawning apology.

Before the apology could reach the lips, Batman hurled himself off the roof of the gazebo at Superman.

They met in mid-air, Superman giving way before the assault, letting momentum roll them over and over in the air as though they were boys again, rolling on the grass. Bruce captured Clark's face in his hands and brought their mouths together, closing his eyes and letting the world spin around them, their kiss the still point around which everything turned. Everything.

The spin ended in a slithering tangle of blue and red cloth, their capes half-wound around them, and Clark was underneath him, all muscle and sinew and sweetness, and there was nothing but yards of wind between them and the ground. Clark tasted of smoke and salt, and Bruce couldn't seem to stop kissing him, winding his hands through silky hair and savoring the way Clark bore his whole armored weight like it was nothing. Such strength beneath his hands, such power shivering under his touch: Bruce pressed against Clark's body and reveled in its reaction to him, relished his reaction to it, and for a while thought of nothing at all but that.

"Oh God, it really is you," breathed Clark after a time, his voice touched with awe. "Oh, my love. My demon lord, my army of vampires--" He broke off as Bruce started laughing. "That's what Mannheim's men were calling you--that was _you_ , wasn't it?" he said wonderingly. "You crazy madman, you beautiful lunatic, my prince of bats." His fingers were on the makeshift cowl, tracing the ears, and Bruce felt himself shivering as if it were the most intimate of touches. Gentle fingers slipped under the edge of his cowl, feather-light on his cheeks. "May I?"

Bruce nodded, and felt the cowl lifted away from his face so the breeze stirred his sweat-soaked hair. Even after only one night of wearing it, it felt like removing a living part of him, leaving him naked and vulnerable. He shuddered and leaned into the touch, desire shaking him. "You can fly," he whispered, looking at Clark's eyes, not at the ground far below them.

"Yes."

"This is the big secret you wanted to tell me about."

The apologetic look was back in Clark's eyes; this time Bruce waited for him to speak. "Yes. I'm an alien. I've known for a while. I wanted to tell you." He swallowed hard. "I should have told you, I should have found a way."

"You win," said Bruce.

"I--what?"

"You said your secret was bigger than mine. You win. We don't have to arm wrestle," Bruce said solemnly, gently punching Clark's solid shoulder.

Clark stared at him, and the total confusion in his sky-blue eyes proved completely irresistible; Bruce pounced on him once more, almost growling in his eagerness to claim that familiar (yet strange, so strange, so beautiful) mouth yet again.

After a frozen moment, Clark wrapped one leg around him as if to pull him even closer, making a low sound in the back of his throat that seemed to caress the pleasure centers of Bruce's brain directly. He pushed Bruce's hands under the gleaming cloth and suddenly Bruce became aware the gloves had to come off, that there couldn't be anything between his hands and Clark's skin for a moment longer.

The dark gloves spiralled to the ground below, followed shortly after by the top half of Clark's uniform.

A sound was pulled from Bruce's throat as he caressed the muscled ridges of Clark's chest, a sound in which admiration, lust, and sheer want mingled. His grip on reality seemed to be unraveling entirely, but he managed to keep his head enough to stammer, "We can't--Alfred--your mother--"

"Alfred is in the kitchen," gasped Clark. "And my mother is still asleep."

Bruce blinked at him, startled out of his haze of lust.

A flush was creeping into Clark's cheeks. "I can...I can hear them," he said.

"You can hear them."

"I have, um, enhanced senses," Clark stammered. "I can hear very well. And see very far."

Bruce propped an elbow up on Clark's bare chest, put his chin on his fist, and looked down at Clark. He raised his eyebrows, waiting.

"And I have x-ray vision."

Bruce nodded.

"And, um, something I call heat vision."

"So, what? You can shoot lasers out of your eyes?"

Clark nodded. His face was scarlet now.

"Do continue," purred Bruce.

"I also have cold breath."

"Cold breath. I see."

"And I can move very, very fast."

"Anything else?" Bruce prompted sweetly when Clark paused.

"Besides the flying? And the strength and nigh-invulnerability?"

"Yes, besides those."

Clark looked thoughtful. "Well, I can project my voice across surprisingly long distances, but that's not often very useful."

"So, some kind of super ventriloquism," Bruce echoed, nodding. "Of course."

"Um, I think that's pretty much it," Clark said.

"Nothing else I need to know about? No further hidden talents?"

"I think that's everything."

"No telepathy?"

"Oh, definitely not. I don't have any kind of telepathy at all."

"You can't read minds?"

"Absolutely not."

"So you don't have any idea what I'm planning to do to you right now?"

Trepidation warred with a very different kind of emotion on Clark's face. "Not at all."

"That's good," said Bruce. "I wouldn't want to bore you."

"That's...unlikely," said Clark. "So...what _are_ you planning to do?"

Bruce didn't answer in words. Instead, he maneuvered his hands between their bodies to tug down Clark's tights. They drifted to the ground in a flutter of blue cloth, leaving Clark bare and shining in the morning sunlight.

"Bruce..." he said nervously, his eyes darting around.

"I trust you to tell me if you hear anyone coming close," Bruce whispered against his collarbone.

"You might fall." Clark's hands apparently hadn't heard his protests, as they were busy pulling off Bruce's dark clothing. "Oh God," he murmured as Bruce's shirt came off and he saw the bloodstained bandages. He leaned forward and kissed the red-spotted cotton gently. "Oh God, what if you fall?"

"Clark, I've honed my reflexes for years. I can walk a tightrope blindfolded. I can catch an arrow out of the air with my bare hands. I think--" Bruce grabbed at his belt, rescuing it before it joined the rest of his clothes on the ground, "--That I'm up to fucking you in midair."

Clark made a startled sound and they swept upward a few feet as though he couldn't help himself. "God, _yes_ ," he gasped, arcing against Bruce urgently. "Please." His eyes were half-closed, shivers sweeping through his body. "I want it so much, I've wanted it so long," he said in a voice Bruce had never heard from him: resonant and deep, filled with certainty, which only made the pleading edge to it that much hotter. All embarrassment seemed to have fallen away from him; nude and glorious in the sunlight, he seemed an elemental force, a demigod of the sky.

Struck with a feeling close to awe, Bruce fumbled with his utility belt and the all-purpose lubricant in one pouch. Shifting his weight, he reached down to stroke and caress, probing gently. Clark's body seemed to radiate heat in the sunlight, and Bruce felt a shuddering sensation in his own body as it truly sank in that his oldest friend was not at all human. He wondered if he should find the thought disturbing.

He didn't. Knowing Clark was an alien only seemed to make everything about him make even more sense, like watching a two-dimensional picture deepen at last into its full glory. Clark was his kind, brave friend. Clark was an alien who could fly.

Bruce intended to make all of him his own.

He was trying not to shake with desire, trying not to retain enough self-control not to simply lose himself in the demands of his body. "Clark," he managed through the pounding of his own pulse, "Is this your first--are you--"

"You can't hurt me," Clark breathed, almost dreamily. His eyes were half-open, unfocused, his mouth lax and rapt with delight. He lifted his hips slightly, invitingly. "You don't have to be so--so gentle."

Bruce drew a long, shaking breath. Far below them, wild poppies glinted in the grass as it shivered in the breeze. They must look ridiculous, two naked men floating in midair.

But if there was one thing Bruce Wayne had learned, it was that whether or not something was ludicrous or glorious lay largely in one's attitude.

He had no intention of letting this experience be anything but glorious.

Clark's shoulders were bright and warm as a beam of sunlight, solid as steel beneath Bruce's hands as he put his weight on them and positioned himself carefully, pushing inward. Clark's legs wrapped around his waist and he arced in the air like an angel captured in the moment of falling, pulling him closer and deeper with a gasp. A wanton angel, his face flushed with passion, his erection hot and demanding between them, pushing against Bruce's abdomen. Clark's face was light and his body was heat, and Bruce found himself unable to keep his pace slow. Clark pushed against him deliriously, urging him on, and Bruce needed it more than anything, needed to thrust harder, needed--

Clark cried out sharply, just his name, and for a moment it was as if all Bruce had ever needed was to see Clark's face tighten with rapture with Bruce inside him. Clark rolled in the air, gasping, and the sky and ground turned around Bruce like an ecstatic mandala. Sheltered safely in his lover's arms, he let vertigo lift him into his own climax, taking flight together.

He came to himself to see Clark's face, the transcendent abandonment replaced by shyness and a touch of chagrin.

"Gosh," Clark said.

Bruce felt himself smiling--a real smile, warm and unforced, the kind he hadn't felt in a very long time. "Gosh," he echoed softly.

They were floating downward like feathers toward the gazebo. "I'm so sorry I never told you," Clark whispered. "I wanted to. But that's no excuse."

Bruce's body felt heavy, drained of all tension. A delicious lassitude was tugging at him. Even his shoulder hardly seemed to hurt. "It isn't," he murmured against Clark's shoulder as they came to rest on the steps of the gazebo. "So now you're going to have to tell me everything, from the beginning."

Clark hesitated. "I should probably get our clothing first."

Bruce made a grouchy noise and tightened his arms around Clark's neck.

"My mother's awake now," Clark pointed out. "And Alfred is going toward the bungalow at the moment."

"Oh." Bruce mustered enough self-consciousness to let Clark go long enough to get their clothes and get dressed. Or mostly dressed--he left the cowl off, as it was uncomfortable and impeded his vision. He had some ideas about how to make it more flexible and better-armored, but he put those aside for the moment and laid down with his head on Clark's lap, running the unnaturally-soft fabric of the crimson cape through his hands. He looked up at Clark's face. "From the beginning," he said.

"Well, there's a lot I still don't know, but it seems I was born on a planet called Krypton," Clark started. He stopped speaking and looked down at Bruce, a strange expression on his face.

"Go on," said Bruce.

"You don't know how many times I've dreamed of telling you that," said Clark.

Bruce couldn't help smiling again at the look on his face. He wasn't used to smiling so much. It felt good. "Tell me more," he said.

Clark started to speak again, about a doomed planet and a last hope, and Bruce listened to the story Clark had longed tell him, and that he--even without knowing it--had yearned to hear. The morning sun slanted across Clark's features, burnishing them. Somewhere in the grass a meadowlark was singing as if everything were finally in place.

Soon Martha and Alfred would find them here. Soon there would be more explanations, more confessions. Soon there would be plans and ideas and dreams to turn into reality together.

For now, there was only Clark's face and Clark's hands touching his hair. There was only Clark's voice, and an amazing story that Bruce now realized he had been part of all along.


	9. Trophy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two new heroes start making plans for the future.

_From: Bruce Wayne_  
To: Clark Kent  
Subject: Good morning, sunshine! 

_Do you know what? I woke up this morning and the first thing, the very first thing I thought was--_

_Well, to be honest, it was "Damn, my shoulder hurts." But RIGHT AFTER THAT, I thought, "Clark Kent told me he loved me yesterday."_

_You did, didn't you? I wasn't just imagining that?_

_Hold on._

_Okay, I just asked Alfred, and he assured me that you did indeed assert that. He then requested that I reserve summoning him for emergencies, not understanding that this **was** an emergency. You see, I've imagined it so many times and so many ways over the last years--more than four years, most of my life, I think--that I just couldn't be sure. And everything hinges on that. What could be more of an emergency?_

_I confess I never imagined it going the way it did. Perhaps this is proof that it was real. I hope so._

_Did I tell you I loved you too? I think I did. But I'd better do it again._

_I love you, Clark Kent._

_**: : :** _

_From: Clark Kent_  
To: Bruce Wayne  
Subject: Re: Good morning, sunshine! 

_Bruce, you are aware that Mannheim isn't monitoring our mail anymore, right?_

_**: : :** _

_From: Bruce Wayne_  
To: Clark Kent  
Subject: I am pouting! 

_You have made me pout! Can't a man express a small fraction of his happiness to his true love without it being interpreted as some kind of play-acting? I have bared my heart to you, ungrateful boy, and this is the thanks I get?_

_Though in some ways I can't blame you. I have found, over the years, that if one expresses the truth in exaggerated or theatrical ways, people will assume that one is being insincere. This has proved very useful at times. But here's my deepest secret, Clark: I meant every word. I am a very lucky man. And I love you very much._

**: : :**

Perry White looked, for a moment, very happy. He held up the morning edition with the picture of Superman battling mecha: sharply in-focus, well-framed, caught in mid-punch. **Superman!** blared the headline above Lois Lane's story. Below the fold was a story with a more modestly-sized headline and less column inches: **Mannheim's Failed Bid For Power** , by Clark Kent. "Good work," he said simply to the three people in his office.

"Thank you, chief!" Lois beamed at him, then caught the paper before it could hit her head.

"Now get out there and get the _next_ story! Stop loafing around in here looking for praise!"

"Nice work, Kent," said Lois as they headed back to their desks. "That was a good story. You know, I think we make a good team."

Clark pushed his glasses up on his nose and almost tripped over his shoes. "Gee, thanks, Ms Lane!"

Shaking her head, she straightened his tie with a casual big-sister air. "I guess you can call me Lois if you like," she said. Then she narrowed her eyes. "And why are you in such a good mood?"

"I--I am?"

"You're grinning like a lunatic, Clark. Lots more than getting the second feature story would warrant. Let me guess--your trip to Gotham went well?"

He couldn't seem to stop smiling, even in the face of her knowing wink. "It did, Lois. Thanks for asking."

_From: Clark Kent_  
To: Bruce Wayne  
Subject: My dear bat 

_Forgive me. After so many veiled emails, after so much wondering, "Will he understand what I'm saying here? Will he read between the lines?" Well, being able to be direct is a little dizzying._

_To be direct: I've loved you since our childhood days of playing at being knights and swearing on the Sword of Oaths. Every dream I've ever had has come true, and it's better than I ever imagined. My friend, my partner, my comrade, my love._

_I'll be back in Gotham this afternoon and will tell you all this again in person, at length._

**: : :**

"After you, Mrs. Kent."

Martha Kent stopped on the threshold, her eyes wide as she looked into the kitchen of the farmhouse she hadn't seen for more than two decades. "Oh, Bruce," she breathed as she stepped over the lintel into her old home.

Everything was still tidy, if coated with a fine layer of dust. Alfred _tsked_ slightly as he passed a finger over a windowsill. "Well," he said, "It's nothing a little elbow grease won't fix."

Martha protested as Alfred put down the bucket he was carrying, opened the Pine-Sol and began to arrange cloths. "But Mr. Pennyworth, you just finished driving us all here. This was supposed to be your vacation, a chance to _relax._ "

"My dear lady," sniffed Alfred as he rolled up his sleeves. "I _am_ relaxing."

And Bruce had to admit that cleaning a farmhouse would probably be relaxing compared to the work they'd all been doing for the last few months. Martha and Alfred had gone from designing and sewing an improved bat-suit to landscaping the grounds to hide certain security features. Neither had ever protested about Bruce's choice of vocation; instead they seemed to take it as a challenge to find the best way to keep their headstrong boy safe. There had been a bitter struggle over the type and amount of bulletproofing to put in the costume, until Bruce had been forced to side with Alfred and choose flexibility over armor. It had been a relief at times to escape to the caves below the Manor where he and Clark were working together.

As the sharp clean scent of pine oil filled the kitchen, Bruce risked sneaking a glance at Clark for the first time. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen, still looking around. His face was a complicated mix of emotions: sadness and joy mingling with hope and anticipation. He caught Bruce's eye and a boyish smile suddenly flashed across his face. "Let me show you my old room," he said.

"Shouldn't we stay and help?"

"Go on," Martha Kent said, waving a rag at them and laughing. "Mr. Pennyworth and I have things well in hand. Give him the full tour."

Clark and Martha's eyes met and Bruce felt a tingle of excitement go through him at their freighted look. He hadn't wanted to assume Clark would show him, but--

"Let's go!" Clark was pulling at Bruce's hand, tugging him up the stairs.

After a tour of the house and barn, Clark took Bruce's hand once more. Bruce could feel it trembling slightly in his. "Okay," Clark said. "This is it."

Together they walked through the corn field that soughed gently in the wind around them, an eerie sound. The endless rows were disorienting, but Clark walked unerringly toward the north-eastern corner of the field as if pulled by a lodestone. "I can hear it," he said softly when Bruce looked a question at him.

The earth there showed no sign of disturbance after all this time, but Clark knelt and touched it gently. Then he shifted into a blur of motion.

Bruce watched in amazement as the ground gave way as though in a stop-action film of an excavation. He'd seen all of Clark's powers in action now--even the super-ventriloquism--but it never failed to amaze him whenever he saw Clark do some superhuman feat. In a moment the earth had been cleared away to reveal--

Clark caught his breath beside him, and he heard himself echo the sound. In the shallow pit lay a small rocket, only big enough to hold a toddler, made of crystals and light. It looked far too fragile to carry a child across the vast distances of space, and for a moment Bruce shivered, wondering how close he'd come to never meeting the man standing next to him.

Clark stepped forward and touched it, and it blazed into otherworldly light. And opened.

**: : :**

The little convertible whipped past the _Welcome to Rhode Island_ sign, and Clark glanced over at Bruce at the driver's wheel. His hair was tousled by the breeze and he was smiling into the sunlight, eyes hidden by stylish sunglasses. He hadn't explained where they were going, merely saying there was something he wanted to show Clark. Lois had been annoyed--their latest story was about a brash young businessman named Lex Luthor and his possible ethics violations--but she had accepted Clark's promise to come in all day Sunday with only a slight rolling of her eyes. She seemed to take an almost smug satisfaction in her knowledge of his relationship with Bruce, although Clark wasn't sure if it was happiness for him or a hope that someday she could parlay that into a good story. Probably both.

"Almost there," said Bruce as the trees started to give way to white clapboard houses. The sea came into view, glittering in the sunlight, and Bruce pulled over to a rest stop. Reaching into the back seat, he grabbed a backpack and opened the door. "Ready?"

Everything about him sang of excitement and anticipation, like a child on Christmas morning waiting for his best friend to open his fantastic present. He jumped from rock to rock as they made their way to the water, seeming to enjoy picking the most slippery and unstable-looking stones to land on.

"Somehow, I don't think we're here for a day at the sea," Clark said as they walked along the craggy shoreline. "Where are we going?"

Bruce pointed ahead of them, about a mile down the coast. "See that mountain?"

It was a solitary crag rearing up almost from the water, surprisingly high for the New England coast. "Sure."

"Do you like it?"

"Um. It looks pretty."

"I bought it," Bruce said, pushing his hand through his hair.

Clark frowned. "Not that I have a problem with that, but why?"

Bruce walked in silence for a while as the mountain loomed closer. As they neared the base, he said, "You know that new guy in Star City? The archer?"

"Sure. Green Arrow, right?"

"Yes. There's more like him, too. Some more obvious than others. Someone rescued a ship off the coast of Maine last week. And there's _someone_ in Colorado, but no one's gotten a good description yet. And of course that princess with the invisible jet who showed up a month ago and started working out of Boston."

"Don't forget that woman with the motorcycle and the enhanced voice, the one who didn't take kindly to Batman interfering with her drug bust."

Bruce rubbed the back of his head ruefully, as if remembering a migraine. "I'm unlikely to forget her. Anyway, there are getting to be more and more of them." He glanced over at Clark, a glint of eyes over the top of his sunglasses. "People like us."

"There's no one like you," laughed Clark.

Bruce seemed obscurely pleased by this statement. "You know what I mean." They were close enough now that Clark could see a cave entrance at the base of the mountain; Bruce sped up the pace to almost a run and soon they were at the dark arc in the rock. Bruce stepped into it, then turned around and held out his hand to Clark. "I've got some ideas."

Clark took his hand and walked into the darkness with him.

Bruce fumbled in the dark and threw a switch, and the interior of the mountain blazed with harsh fluorescent lights, bare bulbs hung from walls. The entrance quickly widened into a spacious lobby, albeit one with rough-hewn walls and no furniture. "This will be our atrium," he said.

"You've been hiring someone else to construct this," Clark said, feeling a pang of something like jealousy, and Bruce laughed and kissed his hand.

"I wanted to surprise you. Look." He pulled Clark up a flight of stone stairs to the second floor. "This will be the meeting room. We'll put in a big round table, like--"

"--King Arthur," Clark finished with him, smiling.

"And over here will be the communications array. We can coordinate all the group's activities, send people where they're most needed."

"You can't call it 'the group' all the time," said Clark. "So what do you have in mind?"

Bruce glanced quickly at him out of the corner of his eye. "I was thinking the League, but...not the League of Valor. That only ever had two members," he said, low and warm.

"The League of Courage? The League of Justice?"

"I like that, but it sounds better as the Justice League, maybe," said Bruce.

"The Justice League," said Clark, and kissed him.

Bruce broke away from the kiss after a long and breathless while and whirled to another door. "And this room," he said, "This will be our trophy room."

"Trophy room?" Clark stared around the blank stone walls with their hooks and brackets, trying to imagine them covered with prizes and artifacts. "You're keeping it modest, I see."

"Better to aim for the stars and miss," retorted Bruce lightly.

"As if you would ever miss anything you aimed at."

Bruce's smile was private and satisfied as he looked at Clark. "Indeed." His face grew more serious. "Clark, there are going to be things that are too big for you and I to fight alone. That metal that Mannheim was using--that was nothing terrestrial. Its atomic structure..." He shuddered once as though he couldn't help himself. "It proved to me that there are forces in the universe we don't understand yet, forces that are cruel beyond imagining, and will not rest until all hope is destroyed. To fight something like that, we're going to need the very best in the world, working together. We're going to have to think bigger than Metropolis or Gotham, bigger than just ourselves." He drew close and rested his forehead against Clark's. "You will always be my partner and my comrade, my brother in arms. That's where everything starts."

He turned and slung the backpack off his back, letting it rest on the floor. "I have our first trophy," he said. He pulled out a small box of pale wood, rich with a golden sheen. "Here."

Somehow Clark felt no surprise when he opened it and saw, nestled in a bed of black velvet, the antique silver letter opener, its blue glass gems gleaming in the harsh light. "You never lost it," he said.

"I would as soon have thrown away my heart," said Bruce, his words oddly formal. "It just...took me a long time to realize why that was." He lifted it from the box and put it on a shelf on the wall. From beneath the velvet he pulled a small silver plaque engraved with simple letters: _The Sword of Oaths_. He set it next to the letter opener. "There."

Clark reached out and touched the old symbol of heroism, and friendship, and chivalry. It looked _right_ there. "But you know," he said, laughter edging his voice, "Our future teammates are going to wonder why a beat-up old letter opener is in a place of honor in the League Trophy Room."

Bruce's arms were around him, his face eager, looking into Clark's eyes as if he saw the future there and found it delightful.

"Let them wonder," Bruce murmured against his mouth.


End file.
